The inability of the Security Council to affect the major military dimensions of the Ukraine and Israel-Gaza crises is unsurprising to any realist scholar of international politics, but has generated renewed questions about the effectiveness of the U.N. writ large. A case for reform should flow logically from this critique: With changed membership and changed rules, the Security Council might be able to take decisions where currently it is blocked. In fact, a key element of the reform conversation is about expansion of the category of U.N. permanent members. Yet, even some of its proponents acknowledge this is likely to decrease, not increase the ability of the council to reach consensus and drive action.
Authors
- Acknowledgements and disclosures
- The author wishes to thank Melanie Sisson and two anonymous peer reviewers for helpful comments, Sophia Hart for research assistance, Alex Dimsdale for editing, and Rachel Slattery for design and layout.
- Published in
- United States of America
