Publication

This policy brief addresses the inner workings of the UN Security Council and contends that Russia, often assisted by the passive attitude of China, has developed an effective set of tactics to constrain and even divide the US and Europe at the UN. Despite this problem for the US and the EU, the author contends that both still need to participate in the UN and that their efforts to work through the organization are still highly beneficial, partly because the UN still provides a relatively low-cost mechanism for crisis management. Finally, he suggests that to deal with the problem, EU states should work to increase the role of Germany in the UN, and that the part Berlin played in the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran could be used as a model for such engagement.