🇺🇳 More seats at the table

Good morning from New York!

Intrigue’s own Ethan Plotkin - playing the role of our roving reporter inside the UN building this week - has hit the ground running. He was barely inside the building before landing a starring role on UNTV when he asked the official UN spokesperson whether leaders who haven’t turned up to this year’s UNGA are “delinquents”. Most ambassadors to the UN don’t have the bravery to speak truth to power like that. (The spokesperson chuckled and deflected - a true pro).

Over at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting, our very own Aine Stapleton not only brought down the average age of attendees by 30 years, but managed to rub shoulders with Hillary Clinton and Janet Yellen. Even more impressive? The entirely free, help-yourself bookstore chock-full of desirable titles.

Meanwhile, Intrigue co-founder Helen Zhang wowed the audience at the Goldman Sachs sky mansion with her hot takes on all things responsible AI, as Morgan Perry worked the room demanding politely inviting New York’s financial elite to subscribe to International Intrigue.

And Monday is supposed to be the quiet day at UNGA.

News

Zelensky’s US charm offensive begins. The Ukrainian president told 60 Minutes on Sunday, “[Putin] is waiting for the United States to become less stable. He thinks that’s going to happen during the US election. He will use the risk of using nuclear weapons to fuel that [instability].” Zelensky will use his speech tomorrow at the UN and his trip to Washington later this week to build bipartisan support for Ukraine and hedge against the outcome of the US Presidential election next year. (60 Minutes)

Hillary Clinton backed increased US support for Ukraine. Speaking with Janet Yellen at the Clinton Global Initiative on Monday, Clinton said: “We have to stay with the Ukrainians. It is really important not to push them to negotiate. You cannot negotiate with [Putin]; he is not trustworthy. You cannot trust anything he says, and I know that from personal experience. [We should give] as much military equipment [as they need] and get it there quicker”.

BRICS foreign ministers will meet on Wednesday. I was wondering who would take a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov - now we have part of the answer. I doubt much comes of the meeting, but it’s noteworthy that Brazilian President Lula will meet with President Biden as Lula’s foreign minister Mauro Vieira breaks bread with his Russian and Chinese counterparts. Welcome to our new multipolar world. (Press release via @sidhant)

Canada is investigating India for alleged assassination. Prime Minister Trudeau said his government is investigating whether “agents of the Indian government” were involved in the killing of a Sikh Canadian citizen in June. Trudeau raised the issue with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G20 last weekend, but making this public during the UN High-level Week puts countries like the US and the EU in a difficult position. Siding with Canada would damage hard-won diplomatic gains with India, but remaining silent would be to ignore an alleged extra-territorial assassination and give endless ammunition to the Russian, Chinese and Saudi Arabian propaganda machines. (New York Times $)

Musk again. Elon Musk sat down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday to discuss “how we can harness the opportunities and mitigate the risks of AI for the good of civilisation.” Musk is engaging with government officials with a level of skill very few possess. But when a guy who’s made billions from public contracts and subsidies calls for governments to “referee AI”, I wonder if the bigger worry is regulatory capture. (@netanyahu)

EU focuses on the Middle East. A meeting of EU foreign ministers yesterday afternoon focused on “reinvigorating the Middle East Peace Process… and the dangerous deterioration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. President Biden will meet Prime Minister Netanyahu on Wednesday, presumably to discuss similar issues. In the constant jockeying for attention this week, Middle East issues seem to have dropped off the front pages despite evidently being high on the EU and US agendas. (Politico)

Guterres says the quiet bit out loud. UN Secretary-General Guterres kicked off High-level Week with some radical candour yesterday. When CNN’s Christine Amanpour asked what power the UN really has, Guterres responded: “No power at all. No power & there’s no money. What we have is a voice… I have the obligation to make it loud… We have a level of division among superpowers that has no precedent since WWII.” Quite. (CNN)

One big question

Does the Security Council need new members?

Not a good look

Unfortunately for the UN, one of the dominant early narratives here at High-level Week is that the leaders from four of the five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council (UNSC) will not attend UNGA this year. Of the P5 leaders, only President Biden will speak tomorrow.

To be fair, it isn’t unusual for the leaders of major powers to skip UNGA. Presidents Putin and Xi rarely attend in person. Former German Chancellor Merkel didn’t attend every year, and Indian Prime Minister Modi has skipped as many UNGAs as he’s attended.

But the absence of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron this week - both leaders that repeatedly state their desire to engage constructively with the world and particularly with countries in the ‘Global South’ - has re-energised calls to make the membership of the UNSC more inclusive.

What would reform look like?

The US outlined its proposal for reforming the UNSC last year:

This evolving US proposal would add roughly six permanent members to the UNSC and perhaps ten more rotating members. It would not, however, grant any new permanent members veto power. That would leave us with a permanent five with a veto, another permanent half dozen or so without a veto, for a total of maybe 22 members of the UNSC. Confused yet?

What would adding members to the UNSC achieve?

In practice, not a lot. By not expanding the veto power, the US’s proposed reform ensures that the UNSC’s political dynamics remain more or less the same. If anything, more voices in the room would make it less likely for resolutions to pass.

But symbolically, reform could achieve quite a lot. The reality is that the UN’s power (and therefore the UNSC’s power) is already at a low ebb because, from the major powers’ perspective, it is too hard to achieve outcomes.

For example, if you’re a US policymaker, it’s far better to deal with matters of global finance in the IMF (which you control) and security issues through custom-made security forums like NATO or The Quad (in which you have tremendous influence).

Expanding the UNSC is probably win-win

From a major power’s perspective, what’s the downside of having more voices at the table? In the best-case scenario, countries from the Global South are at the top table for important conversations, and there’s an opportunity to build trust. In the worst-case scenario, you still have a veto to prevent any resolutions from being passed.

As the world retreats further into fractious regionalism, forums that bring disparate nations together to discuss challenging issues should be protected, even if they’re mostly symbolic. But it would help if more leaders recognised the power of that symbolism.

Tomorrow’s intriguing events

• Leaders’ speeches start tomorrow! President Lula of Brazil kicks things off at 9 AM, followed by US President Joe Biden. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky take us through to lunch. In the afternoon, we’ll be listening carefully to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.

• Goalkeepers 2023: Bill and Melinda Gates are hosting an event to help you see the world as it is today, and imagine a more hopeful vision for the future.

• Devex @ UNGA 78: our friends at Devex are hosting a series of events focusing on the halfway point in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

• Great Power Rivalry in Africa, Who is Winning? Over the past two decades, major powers including Russia, China, and the US, have significantly increased their engagement with countries on the African continent. With China’s growing global influence and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, how do African countries perceive the influence of these powers? (Virtual)

Intrigue in the rooms where it’s happening!

See you tomorrow!