Up until relatively recently the U.S didn't have that kind of global influence either. There could very well be a war or catastrophe that rockets India, Brazil and other states into new positions of leadership very soon.

"And more importantly, their entry into the halls of world governance would not necessarily strengthen the developing international legal regime. These new powers lack the same commitment as the older ones to supranational institutions and universal values such as human rights, the collective defense of democracy, a robust climate change framework, nuclear nonproliferation, and so forth. Hence, permanent seats on the Security Council for Brazil, India, and South Africa, coupled with greater participation by China, Pakistan, Indonesia, and even Mexico in international agencies or bodies, might weaken the very foundations of the liberal democratic order"

The same commitment to supranatural institutions as the old powers, who always has some kind of escape clause to UN decisions? The same universal values such as human rights or the collective defense of democracy, where the large powers prop up dictatorships around the world and ignore internal repression (Latin America, Africa, Middle East) until they don't serve their interests anymore? "Only the U.S. military was able to nudge the Egyptian Army into edging Hosni Mubarak out of power (obviously thanks to the popular movement in the street, but Qaddafi has shown that jasmines and chants are not sufficient)" you mean the US's threat to potentially cut off its aid that has kept the same Mubarak in power for the last couple decades (and the inability to do much when another dictatorship simply says no, i want to stay in power)? In the case of nuclear proliferation its a little more of a mixed bag, but you have to remember that SA is the only country that gave up nuclear weapons, while Brazil is constitutionally obliged to refrain from producing any.

Lets be honest, and agree that the great power usually only use these metrics when it is in their self-interest or like now in North Africa, when the West is forced to act by other forces. I mean, its pretty short sighted to say that these new countries should not join the club because they cannot resolve the problems and contradictions that we created for ourselves. Maybe they have new solutions to these problems.

It makes one laugh when Jorge Castaneda claims that China has commitment to human rights and universal democracy!

It makes one laugh when Jorge Castaneda claims that U. S. has commitment to universal democracy when U. S. has supported umpteen dictatorships, starting with that in China and Saudi Arabia.

It makes one laugh when Jorge Castaneda claims that China has commitment to nuclear nonproliferation when Chinese nuclear technology has wound up in Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria.

It makes one laugh when Jorge Castaneda claims that U. S. has commitment to nuclear nonproliferation when U.S. has totally ignored Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation.

My response to this paper is in two parts.
Part I
This paper puts an altogether excessive value on the UN system. We should know that in the years since WWII UN has lost much of its sheen and validity as an organization of States seeking to create and live by an international system that would ensure peace and fair dealing between States. In the early years it succeeded to some extent. But somewhere along the line, which it may not be very difficult to pinpoint, some of the great powers, especially US, started using the UN and its numerous other bodies for their policy objectives and almost as instruments of those policies. It is hardly possible now to say that the UN in its present form can still play an important part in preserving world peace and promoting a sense of security among the less powerful member countries.
It may be enough to give one example. Take China’s experience with the UN over a long period. In 1949 the PRC wanted to take the place of the ROC in the UN system, including naturally permanent membership of the UNSC. But the US continued to pretend that ROC, confined to Taiwan, was the rightful owner of that position. PRC had no choice but to lump it for the time being. For long years PRC went on handing out abusive condemnations of the UN and its actions on every conceivable occasion. In a word, there was hardly any scope for a sensible relationship between the UN and the PRC. And then Nixon went to Beijing: the rest of the story we all know. Before long PRC was duly installed as permanent member of the UNSC in place of ROC, which ceased to be even an ordinary member of the UN. There was no reason to regret this. In many ways this was conforming to the ground actualities that Nixon and PRC recognized and acknowledged.
But consider China further. Its record as permanent member of the UNSC is hardly one that it will ever have reason to look back to with pride. Not unlike others of the UNSC, PRC also used its veto repeatedly for causes and objectives not far different from those of the other powers. In this respect PRC was much the same as the other permanent members. As a result UNSC has become more a headache than a protective shield for any of the less powerful members. For the powerful members who can look after themselves the UNSC is a bit of a nuisance and a dispensable quantity. No one really needs UNSC for any objective of any State.
It is hopeless to think that making Brazil, India, and South Africa permanent members of the UNSC shall create a situation which will be unmanageable for the powers that be. Let us remember that at this moment the three Western members are permanently pitted against the two Eastern members. The three new members are unlikely to be hangers on or client states of any others of the UNSC. It is more than possible that these three shall not be overly amenable to the influences of the Western three or of the Eastern two, but they may not necessarily constitute a bloc by themselves.
At the same time, permanent membership of the UNSC is by now a much devalued commodity which does not hold too much attraction for anyone, especially because it has been brought to the present pass by the earlier five by their repeated, excessive, and unabashed use of the veto over the decades.
Part II
I am rather amused that the author has attempted to promote Pakistan to the company of several who are really and truly important members of the world community. Let us not pretend that a donkey-rider may claim parity with horse riders atop wonderful stallions. Pakistan today is in dire financial straits and does not have a week’s rations if the US were to withdraw its support. In short, Pakistan is eating out of US’s hand, as it were. Secondly, it has been a compulsive user of terror as an instrument of its policies for several years: if the US department of state has not declared it as such, it is because this does not suit the US copybook. There have been damning statements by no less than the British prime minister and the French president saying that 80% of global terror emanates from Pakistan. Mrs Clinton also was constrained to warn that if the next terrorist attack on the US mainland were traced to Pakistan, then certain consequences would follow, although she did not quite specify those consequences. The common sense of the matter is that if such a thing happened, then Pakistan would find itself treated as a terrorist state. If that was not Mrs Clinton’s meaning, then she might as well have saved her breath.
Besides, much like its patron and all-weather friend, China, Pakistan has been an unabashed proliferator of technology and materiel for nuclear weapons and missiles. Dr AQ Khan’s smuggling bazaar of such technology and materiel is well known and has been much written about over the years. And yet we are told Pakistan stands in the company of powers like China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Mexico. Pakistan has only one factor that seems to have influenced the author’s assessment – Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. This is hardly the place or the occasion for going into how Pakistan acquired technology and materiel for its own nuclear weapons and missiles, but it remains a fact of the situation that Pakistan itself has been responsible for giving technology and materiel to other countries like North Korea, Iran, and Libya (the last one rapidly abandoned its nuclear ambitions after seeing the fate that befell Iraq and Saddam Hussein). In this respect, China and Pakistan have been partners in nuclear proliferation at any rate to North Korea, which has no hinterland of scientific education and research in its universities or technological research and innovation in any of its technological institutions. Nor has Pakistan, for that matter.
Pakistan has failed to build even a system of education which could have supported a society based on principles of moderation and tolerance, which are the only bases and principles on which States in our times can be constructed. There is no room for making States on the basis of any one religion or system of belief. And yet we know that Pakistan has a pervasive system of madrassa education which inculcates ideas and thinking that seeks to take its students to a seventh-century medievalist thought system, to the exclusion of non-Islamic persuasions and even of some Islamic sects. The author should have known that a benighted place like that hardly qualifies to be in the company of the others that he mentions.
Part III
Towards the end of my submissions I am tempted to remind the author that it will not do to create a caste system among the permanent members of UNSC. Let him not start thinking of permanent members without the veto. If any such movement seemed to be in the works, my suggestion to the new candidates would be to reject the idea and turn their back on the UN system altogether. Let the UN find out how much weight it will pull in the world comity if these countries just refrained from participating in UN. It will underline the nonsense that the UN system has already become in the hands of the present permanent five. The new permanent members may yet save the UN from going downhill – if they are invited in with honour and consideration. Otherwise there is very little that can stop the UN from going the way of the League of Nations.
V. C. Bhutani, Delhi, India, Mar 15 2011, 1755 IST

Does India worth of even discussion or contender of the case?
NO.....

India a hegemon in the region and threatens the stability of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal and Bhutan.

India has territorial and border disputes with almost all its neighbors including China, Pakistan myanmar and bangladesh.

India a country with half the population living below poverty line with apparent cry of INCREDILE ( increadible) India.

India a country with more than 50 ethnic / regional insurgencies fighting for the right of self determination.

India a country with poor records of human rights, minority supression and hindu extremism.

EVEN THEN.....
WHY THE WORLD SHOULD EVEN TALK OF VETO POWER IN RELATION TO INDIA just because its a POPULOUS country? the same populationis on the verge of balkanization.

Well, as a Brazilian, I can certainly say it is not a surprise for a fellow Latin American to demean Brazilian capabilities... As if the Middle East/North Africa crisis were not showing once and for all the complete impotence of all Security Council permanent members, particularly France and the UK, who cannot afford actually doing anything and acting upon their words.

Even though it is clear that Castañeda is motivated, regarding Brazil, solely by his internal rage that his own country would never be considered as a candidate for a permanent seat, his words against a permanent seat for India are even more shocking, and even less logical. The world can certainly live with a Brazil that is a not a permanent member of the Security Council - but the UN must solve the Indian problem soon, before India becomes the most populous nation on earth.

At that moment, when an India that is a military and nuclear power becomes the largest nation, the position of the current 5 will seem even more untenable than it is now - especially those of France, the UK, and even Russia. At that moment, if India is not properly recognized as one of the major powers, it will be clear that the moment of leaving the UN will have arrived. (As the first founding member to have left the League of Nations, in 1926, Brazil will have no problem supporting India at that moment in time....)

A fairer situation would be to raise the number of permanent members of the UN security Council to 7. Dispense with Britain and France's places, add Brazil as a representative of S. America (independent of the US), the Rep. of S. Africa as an African one, and lastly an Oceania one representing the nations of the Phillipines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. Troubled and poor areas like S. Asia can wait for a place later and so can highly volatile areas such as the Middle East.

Beautiful!. Statement of a true scoundrel!

The American hypocrisy in Bahrain and Yemen prove to everyone that the idea that NATO has more "Values" than Brazil, India, Russia or China is a bunch of hogswallop. Saleh is no better in human rights than the Iranian government, but not a peep about him gunning down protesters!

Sometimes I'm disguisted by the public "intellectuals" in this country. It's like the leadup to Iraq all over again ... this echo chamber of naivete and American Exceptionalism distracting everyone from the reality.

I know Brazil very well. My family has had business there for 30 years. Let's be serious. Brazil can barely manage its own house. Those are facts. And any serious person knows that. The country is so inefficient that any product or service costs 50% more than in the first world. It's due to a lot more than rapacious taxes but in fact reflects the byzantine bureaucracy, derelict infrastructure (which the past 2 governments have done nothing to solve).

Due to global growth and high commodity prices and an internal credit program, tested in Mexico first and UN stamped, there has been a consumer boom in Brazil in the last 5 years and the country has been growing for the first time in 30 years. Will they sustain it?

As a result of this growth the Federal government is awash in cash. It has tons of development programs for industry and infrastructure but it cannot even achieve 10% of what they plan - a small qualified work force (huge mistake: no investment in education in 50 yrs!) and total incompetence are the reasons. Brazilian off-shore platforms import American welders for crying out loud!

Now, does anyone in their right mind want to see Brazilians making key decisions that will affect all of us on the planet? Per the article "Not ready for prime time", Brazil cannot project military power in its own backyard, Latin America, let alone half away across the globe. Finally Brazilians still have a long way to go before they're a mature people who stop reacting emotionally and aggressively, as children do.

You will be a great power, *IF* you really do your homework for at minimum another generation or two and become mature people instead of always whining.

And no your economy is not bigger than France or Britain, both hovering at $2.5 trillions while Brazil is still at $1 trillion - that's the GDP of 200 million people. France and Britain have 60 and 50 million respectively. See the difference?

Russia is already on the Council and has century old military, intelligence and diplomatic tradition. But it's not a liberal nation with values still too far removed from the West. Pretty much the same can be said for China and India.

With the size of the crisis coming, let's keep it in the West 'cause truth be told, we're the only ones who have a "small" chance of solving the plight of 100's of tribes and bickering nations and avoiding a collapse of world order (read *CIVILIZATION*)

This is not in response to anyone who has written before me. Nor am I trying to defend or reinforce what I wrote above.
A permanent member of the UNSC should be one that has shown by its conduct that it could be regarded by the rest of the world as a responsible member of the world community and that it could be expected to act soberly in any situation that may arise.
It is no use talking about the problems of this or that country which may be a candidate for the permanent membership. Almost all countries, including the existing Permanent 5, have a host of problems within their own countries and with several other countries. Having problems is not a disqualification. The point is how a country attempts to resolve its problems.
In this day and age there are a few objectives which by common consent are regarded as desirable. These include, among others, nuclear nonproliferation, refraining from the use of terror as an instrument of the policy of a country, and, of course, the goold old five principles of peaceful coexistence which have been universally regarded as good. If a country defaults in respect of any one of these, then it ought to be unfit to be a permanent member. But it is a fact of the situation that many of the existing Permanent 5 do not have a clean record in this regard.
I would not talk about the system of government in any particular country, whether an existing permanent member or an aspiring permanent member. If we get into that, it will raise so many questions that it will lead to much disorder and unsettlement. Besides, it may amount to interference in the internal affairs of a country.
V. C. Bhutani, vineycb1@vsnl.com, Delhi, India, Mar 18 2011, 1241 IST

I really wish to read all comments, but I'm just glad that I'm not the only one who believes this text is a complete waste of time.
All his arguments are followed by exceptions that he quoted, for instance, that the addition of India, Brazil and South Africa to UNSC would make it more legit. Increasing the representativity and legitimacy of UNSC is the great challenge for UN right now, or does it seems that the last round of sanctions had any outcome in constraining Iran's atomic endeavor?

in each and every paragraph the achievements of BRICS are stated just to be nulled by some irrelevant and simplistic argument such as "they still lack the ability to project power the way that countries such as France and Britain can when NATO or the U.N. Security Council so decide. One can agree with such interventions or oppose them, but at this juncture only countries such as these and the United States have the wherewithal to actually do something in crises such as Libya."

By the way, Why is France one of the most indicated to deal with the lybian crisis even after the denounces of Sarkozy's run for president being financed by Kadafi?
A real waste of my precious time this was.

Unlike the other three countries, Brazil could prove to be a post-modern super power anytime soon. Plus, all other three countries are trapped in the same continent with long history of realist military/economic competitions. Rather than developing that, Brazil has a natural advantage to be a silent and perversive super power. It's natural resources with evenly matched mixed ethnic population and its lack of restrictive nationalism could shake the world as what USA did in 20th century. If Brazil develops itself in full scale, makes a sound and well balanced political-economic system, it will be the future leader of the world.

I agree that it is time for the US to start seriously considering UN Security Council enlargement. While opponents of UNSC enlargement argue that such a measure has the potential to dilute US power, decrease efficiency and encourage lowest common denominator actions, the US has little to gain from a perceived rejection of UNSC authority. If left unchanged, the UNSC will become increasingly ineffective in addressing today’s security challenges that demand cohesive, broad-based multilateral responses.

The US should, therefore, take the lead by publically supporting UNSC expansion, laying out a long term road map to incorporate major aspirant countries, notbly the BRICS, Germany and Hapan, to new permanent seats based on concrete criteria, such as political stability, the capacity and willingness to act in defense of international security, and the ability to negotiate and implement sometimes unpopular agreements, as outlined in a report by the Council on Foreign Relations. Such a measure will vastly increase the credibility of the Security Council, give aspirant states an incentive to increase their contributions to global security and socialize regional leaders into responsible global actors. Further, by taking a lead, the US can avoid reform schemes that are contrary to its interests and increase global political support for existing arrangements that reflect US values and interests.

I have gone through the article and would try to be precise in my comment on the member's nations Brazil and India in regard to be yet considered or not to be given permanent seat in UN Security Council.

With regard to China and Russia, I will not venture to comment on these two countries as to be fair and in the greater interest of assessing the Foreign Policy of any country all facts small or big in its row form should be on the table for consideration.

Moreover, it needs to be discussed threadbare on all point with its likely impacts and relentless deliberation to arrive at a consensus to formulate a foreign policy that would be applicable with the desired impact in international arena of diplomacy. Therefore, to discuss these two countries case the case of US, UK, and French's case needs to be also discussed.

In my consideration for fair assessment the comparison and argument advanced in respect of Russia and China became one sided. Comparison was not made elaborately by also highlighting the lacking incase of US, UK, and French which was not discussed or if even discussed were not reproduced in full in the article.

However, With regard to Brazil the matter may be considered by the committee whenever it deems fit. However, with regard to India it cannot be considered permanently because of the fact is that India may in the view of the International countries the largest Democracy but in fact is not as National Political Party sponsors committal of genocide against its own nationals. A case was registered in the Indian court of law after proper investigation accusing the Political party head Advani as the prime accused.

The case was in the deep freeze of the Indian Supreme Court Until recently. it has be opened for trail to exonerate the accused to make India Clean as Israel is trying to exonerate itself by threatening Goldstone to retract his earlier recommendation.

With regard to Brazil and South Africa's case, the points of objection seem to be weak but may be it needs a full-fledged deliberation. However, India it should be barred from the permanent Security Council Seat as no genocide committal country against which case was filed and was lying in the court for decades should never be the Security Council Member as a rule.

The same universal values such as human rights or the collective defense of democracy, where the large powers prop up dictatorships around the world and ignore internal repression (Latin America, Africa, Middle East) until they don't serve their interests anymore? "Only the U.S. military was able to nudge the Egyptian Army into edging Hosni Mubarak out of power (obviously thanks to the popular movement in the street, but Qaddafi has shown stavkove kancelarie that jasmines and chants are not sufficient)" you mean the US's threat to potentially cut off its aid that has kept the same Mubarak in power for the last couple decades (and the inability to do much when another dictatorship simply says no, i want to stay in power)? In the case of nuclear proliferation its a little more of a mixed bag, but you have to remember that SA is the only country that gave up nuclear weapons, while Brazil is constitutionally obliged to refrain from producing any.While opponents of UNSC enlargement argue that such a measure has the potential to dilute US power, decrease efficiency and encourage lowest common denominator actions, the US has little to gain from a perceived rejection of UNSC authority. If left unchanged, the UNSC will become increasingly ineffective in addressing today’s security challenges that demand cohesive, broad-based multilateral responses.The US should, therefore, take the lead by publically supporting UNSC expansion, laying out a long term road map to incorporate major aspirant countries, notbly the BRICS, Germany and Hapan, to new permanent seats based on concrete criteria, such as political stability, the capacity and willingness to act in defense of international security, and the ability to negotiate and implement sometimes unpopular agreements, as outlined in a report by the Council on Foreign Relations. Such a measure will vastly increase the credibility of the Security Council, give aspirant states an incentive to increase their contributions to global security and socialize regional leaders into responsible global actors.