This has been floating around for a while....

Expatica - Living in, moving to, or working in Germany, plus German news in English: "NEW YORK - Germany, Japan, India and Brazil on Monday demanded that they be given the 'same responsibilities and obligations' now carried out by the five current veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council.
But the current permanent members - the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and China - are opposed to sharing the veto power with any new permanent members.
The four countries, which are themselves campaigning for permanent spots on the council, are seeking to enlarge the Security Council from the current 15 members to 25, with the addition of six permanent and four rotating members to better reflect today's balance of power in the world. "


As I try to take a internationalist, non-citizen stance on matters of diplomacy, I must admit that I'm fully in support of these measures. I feel they're much more in tune with geopolitical realites (actually I feel that Germany, Britain, and France should be consolidated into one permanent EU seat and three rotating ones among all members; furthermore, Russia is an echo of it's former self and should be stripped of veto power). I'm in support of it, but am dubious to whether it will happen.... countries like the US and France will hold on to these rights with their dying grasp and will NOT share, despite whatever the external non-UN world realities are....

Multipolarism has it's dangers, but I feel it's probably MORE stable than an antagonistic unipolar world where everyone hates the single superpower and the superpower begins to slip...which is exactly where we are now. There are many who cite a bipolar world as the most stable, but we may not see that for many many years...

In the meantime, give a real voice to a more realistic share of the world. Privelege is earned, not granted, and a large degree of the first world still thinks it's 1945--France especially. Nations must maintain their power and influence if they expect to continue in the priveledged position of world leader (it's a bit of a chicken and the egg debate, I'll admit it). European individual nations are certainly on the decline (although the EU whole may be on the rise, particularly if the constitution goes through) in terms of world influence. Other political structures like the UN should reflect this rather than ancient realities. At the moment, France and others use their UN seat to augment and amplify their world influence to a greater sphere then they in actuality possess.