Russia has vetoed a U.N. resolution sponsored by the United States and Japan calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space.
The Soviet Union was a charter member of the United Nations and one of five permanent members of the Security Council. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, its UN seat was transferred to the Russian Federation, one of the many successor states of the USSR.
But as to why they have a veto, they have the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. If the UNSC says “do X”, and Russia objects, it’d probably be preferable in most cases to not do X and maintain the status quo than for it to be nuclear WW3. I don’t think that that’ll change unless there’s a reliable counter to the Russian arsenal.
The US might be able to pull off a successful first strike, wipe out enough of the arsenal and destroy any remaining counterstrike in the air that no direct nuclear response could happen, but even in that case, it’d be risky and would have colossal costs, kill the nuclear taboo – very bad news for the world as a whole moving forward – kill enormous numbers of people and scatter fallout all over. You really, really don’t want those things to happen.
Plus, the US cannot counter Russian weapons in a Russia-launches-first scenario.
And the other permanent UNSC seat-holders won’t even have the possibility of pulling off a successful first strike, even with the attendant risks and costs.
Nothing else approaching a counter exists today, and preemptively kicking off a nuclear war is a very bad counter, so…
Why does Russia have veto power? They weren’t a founding member.
I’m pretty sure that the Soviet Union was.
googles
Yeah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_and_the_United_Nations
But as to why they have a veto, they have the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. If the UNSC says “do X”, and Russia objects, it’d probably be preferable in most cases to not do X and maintain the status quo than for it to be nuclear WW3. I don’t think that that’ll change unless there’s a reliable counter to the Russian arsenal.
The US might be able to pull off a successful first strike, wipe out enough of the arsenal and destroy any remaining counterstrike in the air that no direct nuclear response could happen, but even in that case, it’d be risky and would have colossal costs, kill the nuclear taboo – very bad news for the world as a whole moving forward – kill enormous numbers of people and scatter fallout all over. You really, really don’t want those things to happen.
Plus, the US cannot counter Russian weapons in a Russia-launches-first scenario.
And the other permanent UNSC seat-holders won’t even have the possibility of pulling off a successful first strike, even with the attendant risks and costs.
Nothing else approaching a counter exists today, and preemptively kicking off a nuclear war is a very bad counter, so…