The magnificent obsession in New Delhi about gaining permanent, veto-wielding membership of the United Nations Security council (UNSC) is increasingly dissociated from the ground realities. New Delhi’s anxiousness to win support for its UNSC bid has put many important visitors to the capital in an unenviable position.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in New Delhi a couple of weeks ago, was trying to get across the sophisticated point that Beijing will oppose Japan’s permanent membership of the UNSC, but will not stand in India’s way. He could not effectively convey the complexity of Chinese political considerations on UN reform.
Late last year, President Vladimir Putin was virtually compelled by our media to state Russia fully supports Delhi’s entry into the UNSC with veto powers. One wonders why Russia would want to further dilute its standing in world affairs by having more veto-wielding permanent members.
Unfortunately, the headline winning endorsements are unlikely to do the trick for India. All indications from New York are that the proposed reform of the UN is going nowhere, especially the plan to expand the permanent and non-permanent membership of the UNSC.
Many important countries today believe the creation of new centres of privilege in the UNSC is not what the global body needs. The so-called “Coffee Club”—that includes Pakistan, which opposes India’s permanent membership, Italy, which does not want to see Germany make it, and Egypt, which does not like other African powers gain new global standing — has ensured that there is no consensus in favour of UNSC expansion.
The Bush Administration has refused to show its hand on UNSC expansion. But it stands to reason that Washington which has had little time for an increasingly ineffective UN want to expand it and make it even more irrelevant.
India’s problem lies in its lack of enough power and influence in the international system. It does not lie in not being one of the permanent members with a veto. For nearly a decade, India has not even tried to contest for the biennial elections in the UN General Assembly for two-year terms on the UNSC. The last time it tried, in the mid-1990s, India was roundly defeated.
In its obsession with the Security Council membership, India has contributed little to the new debates in the UN on the great global issues. The biggest of them all relate to the definition of the new threats to international security the use of military force. When, how and who should use military force in the modern world?
India has largely ducked this debate between Europeans and liberal Americans on one side and the Bush Administration on the other. The Bush Administration believes that terrorists and rogue states acquiring weapons of mass destruction is the biggest threat and must be addressed vigorously. The Europeans believe that failed states and violations of human rights on a mass scale are the real threats.
The Europeans and American Liberals want to make the UN into a supra-national organisation that defies the traditional notions of sovereignty. It would intervene in failing states and launch nation- building on a large scale. They also insist only the UNSC should authorise the use of military force.
The Bush Administration believes the power to use military force cannot be handed over to a bunch of un-elected bureaucrats in the UN, and democracies like itself should have the power to decide, unilaterally if necessary, on use of force.
Truth be told, India’s position, for all its rhetoric on multilateralism, is closer to that of the Bush Administration rather than the liberal brigade in North America and Europe.
As a large nation, India sees sovereignty as supreme and has refused to let the UN muck around in matter of security concern to New Delhi—Kashmir, Nepal, Sri Lanka, to name a few.
The real Indian dilemma is deeper. As an aspiring great power, it demands a change in global rules and improve its standing in international institutions. But it is torn between finding an immediate accommodation with the Yalta system designed during the second World War, or waiting until it withers away from natural causes, such as the changing global balance of power.
It is now apparent that tinkering with the Yalta system is not going to work. As its relative economic weight in the world increase, India can afford to wait until the Yalta system collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. In any case, New Delhi must recognise, there are no short cuts to great power status.
The writer is professor of South Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
That the United Nations grants veto power to Russia and France while denying it to India--effectively considering India the equivalent of Tuvalu--only exemplifies the irrelevance of the United Nations.
I don't what is the bigger threat to the United States. Is it the external threats like Islamic jihadists and Chinese expansionists who we can contain due to our superior military and economic power, or is it the liberal/leftist Americans who use the freedoms and privileges available for them as citizens to undermine and destroy this country.
The leftists in America, for all their protestations of patriotism and love for this country, will given the chance surrender the freedoms and power of this country to a corrupt and un-american organization called the UN. This in my opinion is a very clear and present danger to the United States.