yeah, I wasn't saying we are any better for it
but as a nation we just felt smugly superior, rather than outwardly whooping about being the best :-)

Really, it's the whooping that I don't like.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 9:51, 1 reply, 14 years ago)

I absolutely agree.
When Dubya visited the site of the erstwhile World Trade Center, there was a scene where the builders there started chanting USA! USA! USA!. And that made me think, "See, THIS has a lot to do with it..."

(Which reminds me: on 11.ix.01, my brother was in a youth hostel in Salzburg with his mates. There was also an American there. They were - obviously - watching the news. The American asked to the room, "Why do they hate us?" My brother and his mates explained in great depth exactly why. For two hours. Sometimes my brother is great.)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 9:55, Reply)

Regarding your earlier point
why on earth would anyone suggest we give up our seat on the UNSC? Even if though we're a small country of less significance than we think we are, why would you reduce that further by giving up a permanent seat?
(Bazongaloid, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 9:58, Reply)

Well, I don't think that there should be any permanent members,
so the UK giving up its seat is part of that. And I don't see a problem with unilateralism on that front - if all members ought to give up their permanent seats, then the fact that some don't doesn't reduce the obligation.

But, if there's going to be a permanent membership (or at least a membership that doesn't rotate as quickly as it does for the current non P5 states), then there seems to be an argument available along the lines that it should have something to do with population, economic might, military might, strategic importance and ability to maintain the peace. The UK scores badly on all those: were the UN to be set up now, there's no way that the UK would be a candidate seat holder. So the argument for retaining the seat seems to rest on the fact that, once upon a time, it was more justified than now. Yet the idea that you can run a major international body on the strength of what member states once were seems deeply strange.

EDIT: That is to say, it's not about reducing significance, so much as recognising it.
EDIT 2: The other advantage of giving up the P5 seat is that it'd piss off most Brits royally, and that'd be intensely satisfying.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 10:07, Reply)

But at the moment we do have a relatively significant nuclear arms stockpile
(compared to countries that don't have nay for example, not compared to the US or Russia) so, whether you agree with it, that still makes us fairly significant.
(Bazongaloid, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 10:12, Reply)

Not so much, given the number of other nuclear states
including those that're undeclared. If it's nukes that count, then permanent seats should also go to South Africa, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, possibly Iran, possibly Syria and so on.

In terms of non-nuclear importance, they should also go to Brazil, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and a few others.

British decline isn't absolute, of course; it's relative. But that's what really counts. So you either have to accept that the P5 criteria are arbitrary - in which case, the moral authority seems to vanish - or that there should be a mechanism to remove states - in which case, bye-bye UK - or that more and more states can have permanent seats - in which case, the very idea of a two-tier SC looks to be untenable, and we're in effect back to the League of Nations and its requirement for unanimity in decisionmaking.

None of the horns of this trilemma looks too attractive to those who want the UK to keep its P5 seat...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 10:22, Reply)