Security Council: It’s not a done deal

Global governance expert at the Council on Foreign Relations and former State Department policy wonk Dr Stewart M Patrick tells DNA that it is in US national security interest to enlarge the Security Council to include India and a few other countries, but that even determined US leadership — not yet in evidence — may not be enough to deliver that result, given the entrenched vested interests.

What does the US gain or lose from getting India and others in as permanent members of the Security Council?
Most of the dialogue about Security Council reform is based on its legitimacy, declining effectiveness and credibility, but these are overstated.

The Council faces frustrating difficulties, but it’s not in crisis. But in the long term, there’s a good chance it will be in crisis. World politics tends to be turbulent in times of rapid transitions in which international frameworks don’t keep pace.

From a US perspective, the time to engage rising powers and lock them into a predictable pattern of international order is when the US still remains the dominant country and has the ability to cede some of the burden of global leadership; else, it will have to do it under duress. At the broadest level, we argue that it’s in US national security interest.

Is the US serious about having India in, and can it deliver?
My suspicion is that the US administration remains divided on whether or not it wants to take this on. There’s some advantage in making rhetorical statements strengthening our Indian strategic partnership, but whether the US will go the extra mile in making this change happen is uncertain.

It won’t happen without determined US leadership; but determined US leadership may not be enough, because there are hurdles. It’s not something the US can deliver on by itself. And because of that uncertainty, US officials see this as a high-risk endeavour with high hurdles and uncertain rewards.

What are the hurdles?
There are two issues: the first is of numbers. Given the nature of the decision-making process for an enlargement of the Council, a proposal has to be approved by two-thirds of the General Assembly members and then be ratified by the respective national political processes, including in the five permanent members.

There’s pressure from a lot of General Assembly members who also want to see a lot of elected members too. That would push the numbers from 15 now to 25 or 26; the US would have difficulty in endorsing anything over 21.  Also, all the permanent five members would be reluctant to see new permanent members get the veto.

The other hurdle relates to the uncertainty about how the new permanent members would ‘behave’: will India and Brazil and South Africa share the same worldview when it comes to intervention and coercive diplomacy against, say, Iran? Of course, the US has been quite inconsistent, but US policymakers need to make a lot of psychological adjustments about the new world we’re entering, which is not necessarily US-dominated or Western-dominated. It’s difficult for them to get their heads around that.