Global Policy Forum

By John R. Bolton

Apart from a ritualistic reference in its final declaration, the Millennium Summit almost entirely ignored the subject of expanding the United Nations Security Council. At the UN's Fiftieth Anniversary only five years ago, revising the Council's membership was one of the most important issues discussed, although no change was ultimately made. Why, in the midst of all of the Summit's many proposals for UN reform, did the Council not figure more prominently?

Perhaps the most important reason is that there is simply no agreement on what a changed Security Council should look like. The definition of the problem has been clear for some time. While most governments concede that Japan is entitled to a permanent seat, especially given the increasing size of its assessed contribution, and while the logic for Germany has followed in Japan's slip stream, agreement never gets any farther. The Clinton Administration was prepared to see the Council expand, but it was never able to develop a concrete proposal others would accept.

"Third World" governments were not prepared to allow two more "developed" permanent members without additional expansion. At this point, the process became incoherent. Suggested new permanent members included the idea of one new member from each regional group (possibly on a rotating basis), or choosing from a list of aspirants including Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, and South Africa. The result could well have been a dramatically expanded Security Council whose very size made it ineffective. Only a few were willing to oppose a promiscuous expansion on the grounds that a large population alone is not sufficient to warrant a permanent seat.

The entirely predictable result in 1995 was gridlock, and no change in Council membership. After the Fiftieth Anniversary, many people believed that the 2000 General Assembly might provide the next numerological decision point. In the intervening five years, however, there were no new thoughts about how to resolve the basic tension between expanding the Council by two seats versus turning it into another ECOSOC under the insistence of the "excluded" to get a seat at the global high table.

This year, however, there is one major new factor, and that is the increasing impact of a common European foreign and security policy. Although the United Kingdom and France have proclaimed vociferously that their Council positions are national, not dictated by a European Union consensus, that argument is becoming more and more difficult to sustain. Even if their instructions do not come from Brussels, the UK and French Permanent Representatives, and, more importantly, their Foreign Ministries, are now inextricably linked in a web of policy-making committees and declarations that leave them increasingly narrow scope for the articulation of national policy differences.

In turn, this phenomenon radically weakens Germany's claim to a permanent seat. Should EU foreign policy integration continue, there will simply be no support among UN members to give the EU a third Council seat, and demands could grow to eliminate separate seats for France and Britain and replace them with the EU (an old Italian proposal before Rome decided it actually preferred its own permanent seat). "Merging" the two European seats might thus open the way for Japan, without raising the specter of a twenty-five member Council with ten or more permanent seats.

Last week, no one at the Millennium Summit wanted to upset the good times by making that argument. But Japan should keep this strategy in mind, for its moment may not be far off.

Mr. Bolton is the Senior Vice President of the American Enterprise Institute. During the Bush Administration, he served as the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs.