Plus: Calendar of the day
IN TODAY’S EDITION
1️⃣ Can the UN be saved? |
2️⃣ A CIA officer goes to jail |
3️⃣ Calendar of the day |
Hi Intriguer. I started my career as a fresh-faced intern with the United Nations.
Okay – technically my first job out of high school was in Canada, where politeness feels like a national sport, by the way. In fact, my boss there was so nice, he lent me his family car over the entire summer.
In retrospect, I realise he was lending me his wheels in case I needed to pop over to Home Depot or something. Instead, I drove to Vegas. He was so polite, his face only twitched slightly when he saw the odometer.
Anyway, where were we? Ah yes… can the United Nations be saved? That’s our top story for today.
Russia starts Kursk counterattack?
Russian troops have reportedly started operations seeking to push Ukrainian troops from Russia’s Kursk region, potentially retaking several settlements. Meanwhile, true to form, President Putin is saying that any Western-supplied long-range weapons hitting targets in Russia would be a “direct participation” in the war. Russia is also set to expel six British diplomats after accusing them of spying.
ECB cuts interest rates again.
The European Central Bank has cut interest rates by a quarter point to 3.5%, in the bank’s second cut this year. The ECB also lowered its growth forecast to 0.8% from a still pretty low 0.9%, citing weak domestic demand.
Boeing workers go on strike.
Around 30,000 workers in the Portland and Seattle areas have gone on strike after rejecting a deal between union representatives and Boeing. The tentative deal included a 25% pay rise over the next four years and a pledge to build Boeing’s next commercial aircraft in the Seattle area.
North Korea releases photos of uranium facility.
The rare happy snaps feature supreme leader Kim Jong Un touring a sterile-looking uranium enrichment facility. Although the photos came with no details, their release is probably a splash of bravado to undermine any calls to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula.
SpaceX completes first private space walk.
US billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis have completed the first-ever commercial space walk. Isaacman concluded his mission with the obligatory inspirational quote: “Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here Earth sure looks like a perfect world”. Amen to that.
TOP STORY
Can the UN be saved?
US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield. Credits: Mike Segar, Reuters
Just shy of a week out from the annual UN General Assembly, when world leaders, diplomats, and spies swarm on New York, the US ambassador to the UN (Linda Thomas-Greenfield) has touched on the touchiest of topics: reforming the UN Security Council (UNSC).
She revealed yesterday (Thursday) that the US plans to push for two permanent UNSC seats for African nations, plus an elected, rotating seat for a small island developing nation. Washington apparently already received "enthusiastic feedback" from partners who got a sneak peek, with US officials saying they’re “serious” about the reform.
To understand why this is such a big deal, here’s a quick primer:
In the wake of WWII, the world hoped the new Security Council would maintain world peace and help avoid the mistakes of the past. To do that, the UNSC can impose sanctions, blockades, and travel bans, and can even authorise military action.
The Council’s top dogs are the five permanent members (‘P5’): 🇨🇳 China, 🇫🇷 France, 🇷🇺 Russia, 🇬🇧 the UK, and 🇺🇸 the US. And they make the headlines because they’re the ones who have the ultimate power to veto decisions.
And then there’s 10 rotating seats with members elected to two-year terms – the freshest five took their seats in January: Algeria, Guyana, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and South Korea. They don’t get to veto, but resolutions still need nine votes to pass.
The UNSC was deadlocked during the Cold War – and it’s been stuck again lately both over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (guess which P5 member uses its veto?), and the Israel-Hamas war (the US has vetoed three resolutions, while China and Russia have vetoed two).
So there’s long been a sense all this UNSC paralysis is getting too costly. But there’s also been a broader sense that the UNSC’s setup no longer reflects reality – the UK and France get a P5 seat while (say), India doesn’t.
So those are the waters into which the US is now wading. And it’s hardly the first – there’s a long list of countries who want to see UNSC reform. The question is how.
Here’s a quick Whitman’s Sampler of some proposals on the table —
-
⚖️ The G4: Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan all want P5 status plus two seats for Africa, though they’re willing to compromise on vetoes.
-
☕ Uniting for Consensus: Led by Argentina, Mexico, Italy, Poland, Pakistan, South Korea and others, this group (known as the Coffee Club) wants to expand the council’s elected membership from 10 to 20.
-
🌳 Ezulwini Consensus: Endorsed by the African Union back in 2005, this one calls for African countries to get two permanent seats (with full veto rights) and at least three additional non-permanent seats.
-
🤝 Small 5: Run by Costa Rica, Jordan, Liechtenstein, Singapore and Switzerland, this one aims to revise the UNSC’s working methods to boost transparency.
Oh, and the US has long supported permanent seats for Germany, India, and Japan, though that’s tricky: can you imagine Russia approving permanent seats for two more US allies (Germany and Japan)? Or China adding two of its own regional rivals (Japan and India)?
Anyway, maybe that brings us back to where we started: this latest US proposal. It’s not proposing to add more US allies, or any rivals that China or Russia might oppose. Rather, it’s simply about adding three voices that’ve long been isolated from international decisions that impact them most – two African voices, and one small island voice.
So does this idea have legs? Sure, it’s incomplete – emerging powers from Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere won’t love watching others leapfrog onto the Council.
But as an initial step, could this US idea really offend anyone? Well… yes. Not because of Africa or the islands, but because this idea is a US idea. And in this low-trust world of ours, that can be all it takes.
INTRIGUE’S TAKE
There are a couple of tensions at play here:
-
The Council itself is struggling between legitimacy (needing a membership that reflects reality) and efficacy (the more members, the harder it is to agree), and
-
At the same time, each member is wanting to preserve its own power, while knowing the UNSC’s power itself keeps diminishing so long as it doesn’t evolve.
Here’s another thing: this is the second time this week we’ve written about a major institution that’s struggling to adapt to this wild world of ours (the other was the EU). So this is not just a UN story. It’s playing out everywhere.
And maybe that’s as good a moment as any to drop the ol’ line from the UN’s second-ever leader, Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld: "The UN was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell."
Also worth noting:
-
Others argue that the UNSC actually needs fewer, not more, members.
-
Responding to questions on how to decide who gets any new permanent seats for Africa, the US ambassador said this would ultimately be a matter for Africa itself to determine – any agreed candidates would then go to a vote among the 193 UN General Assembly members.
A MESSAGE FROM ELECTION INTRIGUE
Did you miss our Trump v Harris debate coverage?
Good news, you can still get the run-down from Intrigue co-founder John Fowler and Washington editor Kristen Talman in our weekly Election Intrigue briefing.
MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE…
-
🇯🇵 Japan: A record nine candidates have thrown their hat in the ring to replace Fumio Kishida as leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and therefore the country’s prime minister. Party members are scheduled to vote on September 27, after Kishida stood down last month amid persistently low approval ratings.
-
🇪🇸 Spain: Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has (with an amen from Germany) called on the EU to rethink its plans to impose tariffs on China-made EVs. His comments come a day after a China-based firm agreed to invest $1B in Spain – the proposed tariffs will be shelved if 15 EU members representing >65% of the EU’s population vote against them.
-
🇦🇺 Australia: In a move Elon Musk has described as ‘fascist’, Canberra has announced plans to fine social media companies up to 5% of their global revenues if they fail to curtail the spread of misinformation. The Australian government is also looking to impose a minimum age for social media users.
-
🇺🇸 USA: A court has sentenced a former CIA officer to 10 years in prison on charges of spying for China, after a plea deal helped him avert a possible life sentence. Over the years, Alexander Yuk Ching Ma had provided his handlers classified documents in exchange for cash and expensive gifts.
-
🇸🇩 Sudan: Tens of thousands of artefacts have reportedly been looted from the Khartoum National Museum, one of the most important museums in Africa. The ‘Rapid Support Forces’ militia is in control of the area where the museum is located, but it’s denied its soldiers were involved in the looting.
EXTRA INTRIGUE
Four things we couldn’t cram into this week’s briefings:
-
The Israeli finance ministry has cut growth forecasts, with analysts now expecting Israel to grow 1.1% (not 1.9%) in 2024 due to the ongoing war.
-
Junior doctors in India are defying a court order to halt their protests and return to work. Doctors around the country have staged demonstrations after the sexual assault and murder of a trainee doctor last month.
-
Mastercard will buy threat intelligence company Recorded Future for $2.65B as the payments giant seeks to bolster its security.
-
And France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron, has made a cameo on the popular Netflix show ‘Emily in Paris’ (it’s quite fun).
CALENDAR OF THE DAY
A 17th C Ethiopian astronomy manuscript. Credits: @DerilloEyob via Twitter.
If you’re missing the good ol’ days of 2017, it’s only an Ethiopian Airlines flight away!
That’s because the official Ethiopian calendar, called the Ge’ez calendar, is around seven years behind the world’s more widely used Gregorian calendar – the difference stems from diverging calculations around when Christ was born.
Oh, you’d prefer a peek into the future? Try Thailand where, according to the Thai solar calendar, it’s already the year 2567.
FRIDAY QUIZ
The world celebrates International Democracy Day this Sunday!
India is known as the world’s biggest democracy. How many people were eligible to vote in this year’s general election? |
What percentage of the world’s population lives in a democracy of some sort?[as defined by The Economist]
|
Who popularised the famous quote, “democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”? |
Was this forwarded to you? We're a team of ex-diplomats producing a concise and engaging geopolitical briefing for 100k+ leaders each day. It’s free to subscribe.