The Substantial Influence of the US in the UN Security Council (1965-1989)

British deputy chief of staff in July 1952, served as the UNC headquarters. The United States rejected a proposal for a UN committee to assist CINCUNC but accepted the attachment of a representative of the secretary general to the UNC headquarters. Senior military representatives of the participating states had direct access to CINCUNC on “major policy” matters affecting their forces. Otherwise they were to carry out CINCUNC’s orders, with the right to subsequently protest in case of disagreement. The Committee of Sixteen, consisting UN diplomatic representatives of the states providing military forces, met weekly in New York to keep the participating states informed of military operations, but it was not a mechanism for advance coordination of those operations.¹⁴⁰

To the United States, it cannot afford to simply abandon the peninsula to civil war and the potential Communist domination, which would raise serious questions about America’s reliability and complicate the task of building confidence in Asia and elsewhere in the US strategy of containment during that era. The choice to turn to the United Nations as “an avenue of escape” from Korea, a means of acquiring international sanction for an independent government below the 38^th parallel and of persuading Congress to provide funds to insure its survival,¹⁴¹ was proved to be both a rational and productive one relating to the domestic and international concerns. It bears noting that the cease-fire negotiations in 1953 was also conducted between the US General on behalf of the United Nations and the North Korea. This is to say, Americans dominated the UN policy and function in the Korean issue; to some extent it was an America-Korean war rather than Korean civil war.

the potential passage of some resolutions, which could not meet its demand or accord with its national interests. Admittedly, compared with the critical influence played by the United States in the past several decades, from the end of 1960s, the US influence in the Security Council stayed at the substantial level, since it had to incessantly raise the veto stick to repel the negative evaluation from the international community instead of successfully lobbying or impressing the member states to be on the same side with itself. From the record of the voting, it is evident that the judgment of the majority is on the opposite way of that of the United States. Under a number of circumstances, the US was on the absolute minority (14-1-0) and stood alone among all the other member states. After the Cold War, the US has greatly reduced the times of veto uses in the UNSC. Appendix 3 has clearly shown the time and the subject of the US veto use in the Security Council. Actually, from 1965 to 1985, the Security Council was paralyzed by the bipolar competition and the USSR dominated the agenda setting in the organization.

3.2.2 The Amendment of UN Charter in 1965 and the Enlargement of the UNSC Non-permanent Member Seats

From the initial dates of the UN establishment till to present, whether or not the Security Council needs further enlargement, whatever for the permanent members seats or nonpermanent ones, remains to be the most heated issue in the reform of the United Nations. Mainly there are two opposite thinking about it:

one school believes that it is necessary and pressing to enlarge it, and insists that the Security Council should not be an elite club¹⁴² or a “superbody,” instead it should represent the equality of every member state in it. While on the other hand, there is another group holding the idea that the further enlargement of the Council would not necessarily promote its effectiveness.¹⁴³ With all these arguments, there is a fact that during over 60 years of the UN Security Council presence, there has merely one substantial enlargement of it in 1963.

According to the UN resolution, “Considering that the present composition of the Security Council is inequitable and unbalanced; Recognizing that the increase in the membership of the United Nations makes it necessary to enlarge the membership of the Security Council, thus providing for a more adequate geographical representation of non-permanent members and making it a more effective organ for carrying out its functions under the United Nations,” the Security Council should be enlarged. Concretely speaking,

“Decides to adopt, in accordance with Article 108 of the Charter of the United Nations, the following amendments to the Charter and to submit them for ratification by the States Members of the United Nations:

in Article 23, paragraph 1, the word ‘eleven’ in the first sentence shall be replaced by the word ‘fifteen’,

142 General Assembly GA/10439, “General Assembly, Acting Concurrently with Security Council Makes Peace building Commission Operational, Also Approves Report of Credentials Committee, Resolution on Conflict Diamonds,” see http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/ga10439.doc.htm.

143 There are numerous articles and books concerning with the issue of UN Security Reform, to see more, please check the Security Council Reform: Archived Articles on Membership including Expansion and Representation, at http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/reform/archindex.htm.

and the word ‘six’ in the third sentence by the word ‘ten’.” Referring to the selection of the non-permanent members, the resolution also states the following principles, “ (a) Five from African and Asian States; (b) One from Eastern European States; (c) Two from Latin American States; (d) Two from Western European and other States.”¹⁴⁴

Accordingly, the ratio of the membership of the Council to the membership of the United Nations has changed over the years. The ration was 11 to 51 in 1945; it became 15 to 113 when enlargement of the Council was voted by the General Assembly in 1963, 15 to 154 in September 1980¹⁴⁵ and is at present 15 to 191. That is to say, at the initial dates of the United Nations in 1945, the Security Council consisted of 21.6% of the membership. In 1963 the new ratio of Council membership to that of the Organization as a whole was 13.35%. In 1980, the ratio is 9.7% and at present the Council membership stands at 7.9%.

Therefore, the enlargement of the UN Security Council did not fully achieve the goal of improving the representative status of the member states. To the United States, on one hand, its influence in the 15 members Council decreased relatively compared with the 11 members council and I will elaborate on this issue in the following, on the other hand when we closely observed the transformation of the ratio, it is not difficult to tell that the United States, as a permanent member in the UN Security Council, would at least enjoy a substantial influence.

As originally stated in Article 27 in paragraph 2, “Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of seven members.” In an 11-member Council this meant that decisions on procedural matters therefore had, of necessity, to include the affirmative vote of at least one permanent member of the Council. When the Council membership was increased to 15, as mentioned above, it was changed to call for decisions on procedural matters to be made by an affirmative vote of nine members. This, however, meant that decisions on procedural matters could be taken by affirmative votes of non-permanent members alone.¹⁴⁶ It is very clear that the changes of membership in Security Council further limit the influence of the United States to some extent. Before the enlargement, the hegemon only need to persuade other six members, and some of which might be its allies. But after the enlargement, the United States had to persuade other 10 members, and some of which might be its adversaries. Although this membership changes had not threatened the basic organizing principle of the Council, it did lead to the further decrease of the US influence.

There is an example of this declining tendency. Although the presidency of the Security Council is not a very important position, it indeed facilitates the great power’s influence in the organization. According to the UN document, “Meetings of the Security Council shall, with the exception of the periodic meetings

144 General Assembly resolution 1991-A (XVII), Question of equitable representation on the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council, at the Official Website of the United Nations,

http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/186/66/IMG/NR018666.pdf?OpenElement.

145 Davidson Nicol, “The United Nations Security Council: Towards Greater Effectiveness”, A Report on the Proceedings of a UNITAR Seminar and subsequent discussions involving former Presidents of the Security Council, senior international officials and scholars, 1977-1980, p. 3.

146 Ibid., p. 15.

referred to in rule 4, be held at the call of the President at any time he deems necessary, but the interval between meetings shall not exceed fourteen days.” “The President shall preside over the meetings of the Security Council and, under the authority of the Security Council, shall represent it in its capacity as an organ of the United Nations.” “If two or more amendments to a motion or draft resolution are proposed, the President shall rule on the order in which they are to be voted upon.”¹⁴⁷ Because of the amendment of the UN Charter in 1965, the access to this position of great powers, including the United States, has been narrowed. “The presidency of the Security Council shall be held in turn by the members of the Security Council in the English alphabetical order of their names. Each President shall hold office for one calendar month.”¹⁴⁸

The increase in the membership of the Council in 1965 has been an increase in the span between the presidency of each individual permanent member. In the 11-member Council, each permanent member acceded to the presidency at least once a year, while in the 15-member Council each permanent member accedes to the presidency less frequently, more on the order of every 15 months and, in some years, any one permanent member may not serve as President at all during the year. As seen in the table below, the longest lapse of time between United States presidencies in an 11-member Council was 13 months, and this occurred only once, in 1956-1957. By contrast, the shortest lapse between U.S. presidencies after the amendment in a 15-member Council is 13 months. On all other occasions the lapse of time between presidencies has been even greater, in one instance (1966-68) 19 months.¹⁴⁹

Because of the relative decline of its hegemonic power, and increasing independence of the Third World countries, the US influence in the UNSC was further weakened by the revision of the UN Charter and the enlargement of the Council. After all, the enlargement has given the developing and non-Western countries more opportunities to access this most important political organization. Since the US could not dominate this organization any longer, it has chosen to paralyze it through veto use. Thus, we could not find any significant events in which the UNSC played a prominent role during the 1960s and 1970s. The USSR dominated the agenda setting in the Council but it was also unable to get what it wanted completely.