Eighty years ago, the Allied victors of World War II founded the United Nations to prevent future wars and shape the postwar order. They agreed that five powers– the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, China, and France—would play a dominant role within it. These five permanent, veto power-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council—the P5—would be the world’s policemen.
As world leaders gather in New York for the annual meetings of the U.N., few would argue that the P5 are fulfilling the ambitions of the organization’s founders. The P5 are at odds over the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, nuclear diplomacy with Iran, and crises from Sudan to Myanmar.
During the Cold War, the divisions between the major powers were sometimes so intense that the Security Council did not meet for months. But they were also able to use the Security Council as a space to manage conflicts—such as clashes between Israel and the Arabs states—and avoid escalation. The five powers found a new spirit of cooperation at the end of the Cold War. The Security Council backed the 1991 U.S. campaign to drive Iraq out of Kuwait and the U.N. oversaw a wave of peacekeeping operations and sanctions regimes.
This level of cooperation has faded since the turn of the century, as the P5 butted heads repeatedly over issues like the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the civil war in Syria. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked a further, rapid decline in relations. The U.N. still maintains peacekeepers in places like South Sudan and Lebanon, but the Security Council often gridlocks over major crises. In 2024, the disagreements between the P5 resulted in the Security Council ending up passing the least number of resolutions—41—in any year since 1991.
While the U.N. often faces harsh criticisms for its failures to prevent and halt wars, the Security Council ultimately only reflects the realities of geopolitics. In a competitive and multipolar world, it is not surprising that the veto powers are less able to find compromises on crises than in the 1990s.
Many U.N. member states find the idea of these five powers having outsized powers at the organization—and in the world at large—anachronistic. Weighty states, such as India and Brazil, want permanent seats of their own on the Security Council. African governments complain that their former colonial masters still try to dictate the continent’s affairs through the U.N. And Ukrainian diplomats question whether Russia, having taken the Soviet seat in the 1990s, has the legal right to it.
There is a case that the P5 mechanism makes sense in a fractured geopolitical environment, despite numerous member states complaining about it. In a period of constant friction, the Security Council is one space in which Chinese, Russian, and American diplomats can engage on a daily basis. Despite their rifts, the permanent members of the Security Council still agree on a wide range of subjects from aid operations to sanctioning jihadists.
Donald Trump and the United Nations
The idea of the P5 working as a big power steering committee also appears to appeal to the Trump Administration, which has very little affection for the U.N. Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January, U.S. diplomats have been telling their P5 counterparts that they want to see the group cooperating better again.
This is a shift from the U.S. positions during the Biden Administration, when the U.S., Britain and France limited contacts with Russia over its aggression against Ukraine, and U.S. officials went on a global listening tour to hear other nations’ proposals on Security Council reform. In Sept. 2024, during the end of the Biden Administration, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced U.S. support for the addition of two permanent seats for African nations on the Security Council, and one seat to be rotated among small island developing states. American diplomats have indicated that President Donald Trump will not be pursuing these reform proposals.
The Trump Administration’s changes in policies toward the U.N. have had a notable effect on the diplomatic mood in New York. The Russians, who were resentful of Western efforts to freeze them out over Ukraine, have toned down their anti-American rhetoric. Small and mid-sized countries that were energetically pursuing Security Council reform have backed off and are waiting for a clear signal of what—if anything—Trump will say about it.
Bolstering the P5 may align with Trump’s overall preference to cut diplomatic deals with other major powers, but it has some significant flaws. Not the least of these is that the five powers disagree on almost every first order security question that has come before the Security Council in 2025. It is hardly unusual for the five powers to split over international crises, but the current situation is unusually fluid.
The Security Council and the battles over Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran
Several conflicts, especially Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran, are splitting the five permanent members dominating the Security Council in different ways. In February, the U.S. shocked France and Britain by tabling a Security Council resolution calling for a quick peace between Russia and Ukraine that made no reference to Kyiv’s right to territorial integrity. The move, soon after the acrimonious meeting between Trump and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, signaled that the Trump Administration wanted a new relationship with Russia. Since then, the U.S. stance on Ukraine in Security Council debates has fluctuated as the Trump Administration has vacillated between challenging and cajoling Moscow. European diplomats worry that Washington could side with Moscow in future.
On the war in Gaza, the U.S. alone continues to block resolutions criticizing Israel. Britain and France—and the other elected members of the Security Council—are demanding an immediate ceasefire. China and Russia had already taken that position. The split between Western permanent members of the Security Council predates President Trump’s return to office. France has supported resolutions demanding a ceasefire in Gaza since 2023. Britain initially leaned toward the Biden Administration in defending Israel, but switched to aligning with the French after the Labour government replaced the Conservatives in July 2024.
This division will be on display in New York. On Sept. 22, France and Britain are set to confirm that they formally recognize the State of Palestine in a special conference. While this conference will take place outside the Security Council. Canada, Australia, and Belgium will also offer recognition. The symbolism of two of three Western powers among the P5 making this choice gives it great diplomatic resonance. (China and Russia have recognized Palestine for decades). The U.S. has made its displeasure clear by refusing Palestinian officials visas to visit New York. Washington can also use its veto in the Security Council to stop any push to give the Palestinians full U.N. membership.
The Iranian case has divided the P5 on more predictable lines. In August, Britain and France—joined by Germany—initiated Security Council proceedings to restore the U.N. sanctions on Iran that were suspended as part of the nuclear deal in 2015. All five permanent members of the Security Council had supported the deal. The Trump Administration has backed their efforts. (Hoping to stabilize relations with Iran, the Europeans had objected to President Trump’s attempts to restore the sanctions on Iran during his first term.)
While endorsing the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, the Security Council had negotiated a complex diplomatic arrangement, which ensures that China and Russia cannot veto proposals to reimpose the U.N. sanctions on Iran. But Russia has been especially critical of the European effort to reimpose sanctions on Iran, arguing that the Europeans failed to implement economic commitments to Iran and lost the right to trigger the return of sanctions.
A lack of good options
These multiple disagreements mean that a unified P5 is not going to step up to direct global security any time soon. But the P5 mechanism still has a certain residual value. One of the potential strengths of the Security Council—and of the P5 grouping, in particular—is that it creates a space where divided powers can agree to disagree on some topics, while keeping up cooperation on others. In tough scenarios, it is a format in which the major powers can spell out their red lines and look for potential off ramps.
The very fact that P5 members are able to combine and recombine in different groupings over different crises is a strength. It is a club where diplomats can—when necessary—form flexible alliances on a case by case basis rather than simply pursue “West vs. East” competition. Instead of expecting the five powers to find common ground on major crises in the years ahead, it may be more realistic to see the P5 grouping as a space where they can pursue deconfliction.
It is a good rule of international diplomacy that new institutions are hard to build, and it is unwise to dismiss old ones out of hand. In a period of high geopolitical risk, there is still a case that having the five veto powers keep up a minimum of cooperation is a global public good.
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