The Security Council Needs Urgent Reform. Here's How.

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Video originally published on June 13, 2024.

This analysis examines The Security Council Needs Urgent Reform. Here's How. in historical and strategic context. It traces how the core developments unfolded, which institutions and actors shaped outcomes, and what those decisions changed on the ground. Rather than repeating headline-level claims, it focuses on concrete mechanisms, constraints, and tradeoffs that explain the trajectory of events. The discussion moves from Key Developments through Strategic Implications to Risk and Uncertainty, then evaluates wider consequences. The goal is to clarify not only what happened, but why these developments still matter for current planning, risk assessment, and policy decisions.

Key Takeaways

A group of world policemen tasked with working together to provide global stability.
Representing at any given time a mere eight percent of world nations, today's council is seen by many rising powers as little more than a relic - a fossil of geopolitics as they were in 1945, forever frozen in amber.
Teeth that came in the form of the tanks, bullets, and shells belonging to the world's most-powerful nations.
Amid the unsteady optimism of the post-war era, many must have willed themselves to believe in this vision.
Unfortunately, the AU is currently drifting into a policy of non-interference in its members' internal affairs.

Key Developments

A group of world policemen tasked with working together to provide global stability. The most-important body in the United Nations, the Security Council was set up in the aftermath of WWII to peacefully resolve international disputes. Under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, it's the only UN body with the power to make binding international laws; and the only body that can authorize an armed intervention into a conflict zone. As such, someone with little grasp of geopolitics might be forgiven for thinking this is where real power lies. Yet, in our current era, they'd most-likely be mistaken. Far from setting the agenda in 2024, the UN Security Council is mostly paralyzed to the point of uselessness. Representing at any given time a mere eight percent of world nations, today's council is seen by many rising powers as little more than a relic - a fossil of geopolitics as they were in 1945, forever frozen in amber. At the same time, bitter divides between its veto-wielding members - mostly Russia, China, and the USA - have left it incapable of fulfilling its functions. In short, it's clear the Security Council is in need of major reform. (TITLE): Global Policemen When the victorious nations of World War Two set out to build a new international order, they must've felt like they were creating something that could last forever. That's because the United Nations wouldn't just be a talking-shop successor to the failed League of Nations, but a body with actual teeth. Teeth that came in the form of the tanks, bullets, and shells belonging to the world's most-powerful nations. Sat alongside the UN General Assembly, these nations would form the core, permanent members of the new Security Council. Known as the P5, they comprised two rising superpowers (the United States and Soviet Union); two fading imperial powers (Britain and France); and - at the insistence of the United States - the Republic of China, at that time still a few years shy of Mao's Communist takeover. As conceived by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the five would act as “policemen”. Watching over the world and helping find peaceful resolutions to conflicts, but ready to step in with force if necessary. Amid the unsteady optimism of the post-war era, many must have willed themselves to believe in this vision. After all, the P5 were the globe's premier nations, spanning continents. If anyone could use a combination of soft power and muscle to resolve disputes, it was them. Yet, had any of those involved in the Security Council's founding been able to see forward to our current era, they would have been disappointed. That's because the Security Council in 2024 is an organization that seems incapable of providing any security. Even as multiple crises mushroom up around the world, it has authorized only two deployments in the last decade - a stabilization mission to Central African Republic, and a policing mission to Haiti that failed to even get off the ground before the country collapsed.

Strategic Implications

Representing at any given time a mere eight percent of world nations, today's council is seen by many rising powers as little more than a relic - a fossil of geopolitics as they were in 1945, forever frozen in amber. At the same time, bitter divides between its veto-wielding members - mostly Russia, China, and the USA - have left it incapable of fulfilling its functions. In short, it's clear the Security Council is in need of major reform. The only question is: how? (TITLE): Global Policemen When the victorious nations of World War Two set out to build a new international order, they must've felt like they were creating something that could last forever. That's because the United Nations wouldn't just be a talking-shop successor to the failed League of Nations, but a body with actual teeth. At the same time, the veto powers of the P5 members have stopped international action being taken against some of the biggest wars of our time. Russia, for example, has vetoed any and all resolutions on the Ukraine War; while the United States has used its own veto to stop any action on the war in Gaza. Even when the Council succeeds in passing resolutions, they often fail to make a difference. This year, the body called for a Ramadan ceasefire in Sudan, where a brutal civil war rages. All of which is why today's Council feels less like a group of world policemen, and more like an ineffectual talking shop. One as weak and neutered as the League of Nations prior to WWII. We'll circle back around later to the flaws with the Council as it stands today, as well as various possible methods for fixing it. Before we get onto that, though, we need to quickly fill in some background, to make sure we all understand exactly what we're talking about. Because, like many UN bodies, the Security Council is more-complicated than it might initially seem. The first thing to note is that the Council is far larger than just the P5. While the P5 are the guys with permanent seats and vetoes, there are also another ten elected members. Serving two-year, non-consecutive terms, these elected members must be voted in by two-thirds of the UN general assembly. Although none of them can veto resolutions, they are still able to craft international law on matters of peace and security. They also take turns at assuming the rotating presidency, which gets a new head every month. The Council on Foreign Relations notes that this ensures “some agenda-setting influence for its ten nonpermanent members.” As to who gets to become a non-permanent member, you won't be surprised to hear that political considerations play an almighty role. Since 1965, members have been elected based on regional groupings.

Risk and Uncertainty

Teeth that came in the form of the tanks, bullets, and shells belonging to the world's most-powerful nations. Sat alongside the UN General Assembly, these nations would form the core, permanent members of the new Security Council. Known as the P5, they comprised two rising superpowers (the United States and Soviet Union); two fading imperial powers (Britain and France); and - at the insistence of the United States - the Republic of China, at that time still a few years shy of Mao's Communist takeover. As conceived by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the five would act as “policemen”. Watching over the world and helping find peaceful resolutions to conflicts, but ready to step in with force if necessary. Africa gets three seats; Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe and Others all get two seats each; while Eastern Europe gets one. While this might sound quite representative, in other ways it really isn't. The Economist points out that: “Whereas (the Council) included 22% of General Assembly members in 1945, it now has just 8%.” This is a result of swathes of new countries emerging; thanks to stuff like decolonization, the breakup of empires, and nations like Yugoslavia disintegrating into smaller parts. To be fair, the UN is trying to address this. There's been talk flying around for years now about adding more seats, and trying to get more representation from underserved parts of the world. But this still wouldn't change the salient fact that the P5 themselves are all drawn from just three continents: North America, Europe, and Asia. Latin America and Africa have no permanent members, and while East Asia is represented in the form of China - which took over from Taiwan in 1971 - South Asia is likewise excluded. This is a core complaint of middle or rising powers such as India. That they're stuck living in a world in which they can have larger economies, bigger populations, or bigger armies than, say, Russia or Britain, but are still stuck in a world in which decisions made in Moscow or London carry more weight. However - as we'll see later - fixing this isn't as easy as just adding new seats. Nor can the Council's problems be laid solely at the feet of the P5. In their own way, the non-permanent members are also responsible for the Council's descent into utter dysfunction. Perhaps the most-famous role the Security Council has is authorizing military interventions - in the words of the UN Charter - “to maintain or restore international peace and security.” The most-recent intervention to be authorized was the deployment of a Kenyan-led force to Haiti to tackle gangs. But there are plenty of past examples to choose from. The Council on Foreign Relations currently lists 60 operations undertaken since 1991.

Outlook

Amid the unsteady optimism of the post-war era, many must have willed themselves to believe in this vision. After all, the P5 were the globe's premier nations, spanning continents. If anyone could use a combination of soft power and muscle to resolve disputes, it was them. Yet, had any of those involved in the Security Council's founding been able to see forward to our current era, they would have been disappointed. That's because the Security Council in 2024 is an organization that seems incapable of providing any security. Even as multiple crises mushroom up around the world, it has authorized only two deployments in the last decade - a stabilization mission to Central African Republic, and a policing mission to Haiti that failed to even get off the ground before the country collapsed. At time of writing, eleven deployments are ongoing - covering hot spots as diverse Cyprus, Kosovo, Lebanon, Western Sahara, South Sudan, or the border between India and Pakistan. Nor are these missions generally led by the United States. According to the CFR: “Nepal contributes the most personnel, followed by Bangladesh, India, and Rwanda.” But while this might sound like a global body that's acting as it should do, these in reality are rare successes. Of the eleven current UN deployments, a mere four were authorized this century. last chapter, only two have been authorized in the last decade. Just to be clear - for those who've spent the last ten years blissfully unaware of the news - that's not because the period since 2014 has been particularly peaceful. Rather, it's because the act of signing off on intervention in other states has become politically fraught. As Foreign Policy notes, the current world order is so fragmented that nations have a hard time agreeing on when it's acceptable to make demands of one another. From the outside, the reasons why often seem positive. No-one in the 2020s is comfortable with European and North American nations trying to tell African countries what to do, for very good historical reasons. Unfortunately, this has led to situations where crises in Africa get effectively ignored. To take just one recent example, when Sudan descended into civil war in April of 2023, it seemed like just the sort of situation where the council might be able to make a difference. After all, in the war's opening weeks, none of the veto-wielding P5 had particularly strong incentives to block a resolution. No, what instead stopped any action was the A3 group of African members. Crisis Group explains that, when the Council turns to African affairs: “generations of African Council members have complained that the European former colonial powers dominate these discussions.” As a result, the A3 now tend to oppose interventions in Africa, arguing that the African Union Peace and Security Council should be responsible for the continent instead.

The Founding and Mandate of the UN Security Council

Unfortunately, the AU is currently drifting into a policy of non-interference in its members' internal affairs. So Sudan's civil war has now grown to become one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters; while another conflict the A3 blocked action on - the Tigray War - wound up becoming the deadliest war in decades. To be clear, we're not saying the A3 are uniquely obstructive. We're just using their example as a way to highlight how good intentions - such as not letting former colonial powers dictate African affairs - can lead to unambiguously bad outcomes. Another major issue is that, even when the Council speaks, fewer and fewer states seem willing to listen. We talked last chapter about how a proposed Ramadan ceasefire in Sudan was ignored, but there are other examples - such as Mali's junta recently ordering UN peacekeepers to leave the country, despite high levels of violence. Other times, the slow-moving nature of the Council itself means that events often overtake its deliberations. When Azerbaijan blockaded the ethnically-Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh last year, the Security Council called multiple “emergency” sessions. But these proceeded at such a glacial pace that no resolutions had been passed by the time Azerbaijan launched its full-scale invasion on September 19th. So, instead of action, you got stuff like this strangely anodyne meeting on September 21st, in which Council representatives said things like: “the only solution to the crisis is to end violence.” In fact, by that point the crisis had already been solved by a resounding Azerbaijani victory. Speaking to Foreign Policy, the UN director of International Crisis Group recently lamented that, in the absence of real diplomacy: “The U.N. is a platform for governments to vent and cast symbolic votes.” However, for all the wider Council may be riddled with problems, we'd be kidding ourselves if we didn't say that the biggest issue lay with its permanent members. Specifically, in their power of veto. (TITLE): The Misuse of Veto Power When the Security Council was first set up, one of the key ways to get the world's major powers to agree to its jurisdiction was by giving each of them the power to veto any resolution, That means that, to this day, Washington, Beijing, Moscow, London, and Paris are all able to kill anything that comes before the Council, a power no other capital on Earth has. Although, we should be clear that not all members of the P5 wield that power in the same way. Historically, the big driver of veto usage was the Cold War rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union. Today, both Moscow and Washington still hold the record for most vetoes, with Moscow torpedoing over 155 resolutions, and the United States over 90.

The Veto Power Paradox: Origins and Evolution

By comparison, the UK has only used its veto 32 times, China only twenty, and France a mere eighteen. However, that doesn't mean that each nation's usage has been static, moving to a regular timetable. Since the end of the Cold War, neither Paris nor London have utilized their vetoes. Not only that, but both capitals have also begged the other P5 members to use their own vetoes less. Clearly, these pleas have fallen on deaf ears. During the Cold War, China used its veto a grand total of two times - once while its seat was still held by the Republic of China, or what we'd call Taiwan. In the last decade, on the other hand, Beijing has wielded its power eleven times. But while China is upping the usage of its veto power, the worst offenders remain by far the United States and Russia. Not just because of their willingness to use their veto, but because of the opportunistic way they often deploy it. This can be seen most clearly in a raft of recent resolutions from the Council calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Since the horrific events of October 7th, 2023, there have been five attempts to make a ceasefire official UN policy. Three of them were vetoed by the United States, the other two were vetoed by Russia, with China's backing. What's absurd is that the objections often came down to the language deployed, with the US killing off resolutions that didn't condemn Hamas for their October massacre, and Russia killing off resolutions that did. The result is that - at time of writing - there is still no ceasefire in Gaza, despite all P5 members agreeing to one in theory. Rather than actively solving a problem, it's an example of the Council instead being used for political messaging. Bad as this is, though, things are even more absurd where the Ukraine War is concerned. Twice now, Moscow has used its veto to shield itself from resolutions condemning its illegal invasion. As the Atlantic Council wrote: “How can a country engaged in Europe's largest invasion since World War II and led by a man wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes be allowed to undermine an organization committed to maintaining world peace?” More-recently - on March 28 - Russia separately used its veto to stop monitoring of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. A move widely assumed to be a quid pro quo after Pyongyang supplied Moscow with millions of artillery shells. These are just a couple of recent examples, but modern history is littered with others. Because a P5 member veto is absolute, there is no way to overturn it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the Security Council need urgent reforms?

See the full article for details on Why does the Security Council.

Does the UN Security Council need reform?

See the full article for details on Does the UN Security Council.

Can the UN Security Council be overruled?

See the full article for details on Can the UN Security Council.

What is the main criticism of the United Nations Security Council?

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What are 5 permanent members of the Security Council?

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Jackson Reed

Jackson Reed creates and presents analysis focused on military doctrine, strategic competition, and conflict dynamics.

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