>> and snell from american university chemical added anderson sat down with book tv did -- book tv to discuss his book women at the u.n. in which he argues that some organizations are worth supporting, while others are

not. >> living with the u.n. this part of the book, can anderson is the author. professor anderson, what parts of the u.n. work? >> this is going to sound a little here radical, probably the best part of the u.n. in terms of its workings is the security council. and that has got us -- got to seem a little bit strange. it has to seem a little bit strange for two distinct reasons. one is, all of us, watching the news these state -- these days and see things like syria unfolding and the security council, the inability of it to come together in order to resolve these kinds of major humanitarian disasters that involve a vicious dictator

slaughtering people. and from the look of that, you think of this has to be the worst part rather than the best part. but the reality as the security council is operating to a fair extend as its framers intended. meaning that they had a pretty good idea when they created this in 1945, they knew what they were trying to fix. what they were trying to fix is the pre-world war two league of nations in which everybody got the same vote, everybody got the same voice, everyone had the same impact, big countries, both countries, powerful countries, not so powerful, the good, the bad, the whole thing. and it was a disaster. so we sought -- they saw of falling apart of the league of nations, and the result was that there were not going to let that happen again 1945, and the way to do that was to deliberately create a body called the security council in which they very powers would be there.

and if they deadlocked, the deadlocked. they could not go against the will of any single permanent veto-bearing member. but it enabled them, at least, to try and keep the lion, so to speak, within the tent, rather than having it go outside and start sort of hacking away at it from the outside. with -- despite these immense problems that the security council that, this is actually a fairly successful practice. it is working out as a place where the very powers that come together debate not necessarily resolve things, some but not others. it is actually in many success -- respect is excess. >> host: which nations make up the security council? >> guest: the security council has five permanent members.

these are from world war two. the other criticism that i think is very well taken is these five members no longer represent the population of the world. they don't represent the geographical distribution. increasingly, they don't even represent power in the world. in other words, if you have permanent members include the united states, groups from china , it includes russia, but russia is really neither economic nor military superpower , except in regards to its nuclear arsenal. and then we have france and britain. here we have to very much medium-powers, not economic heavyweights and yet still exert a great deal of force in world affairs, a great deal of

influence in world affairs. a large part of that is actually a leveraged buyout the security council itself. we have no nba, no brazil, no -- no party from outside of this kind of frozen group. and this is, i think, an enormous problem for the security council and one that there is probably no structural way to overcome. and the reason why is pretty simple. if you say to any of the current members, why don't you step on down. you guys really ought to combine in a single european unity in seat. then there's a lot of hemming and hawing. in the meantime germany pops up and says, heck, we are actually one of the world's great economic superpowers. we have no military this be given cannot do anything from the marshall standpoint. it would pay for everything?

so we actually deserve as seat. in japan shows up and says, we have -- now entirely true. we should have a seat because we aren't economic superpower. in every case, any one that says that one then has some very powerful country which says, no way. india makes an enormous amount of sense. pakistan and china would say no. japan does not really make a lot of sense, but in many cases china would say no. germany, everybody says that another seat from europe. and so the security council does have an enormous structural long-term problem with its increasingly unrepresentative this of the world as a whole, and that is going to be its biggest problem. it invites rising powers that feel like they don't have a seat at the permanent seat at the table to wind up trying to make other arrangements to kind of contract around of the security council and try to find other ways to do things.

not all of which are such great ideas from the standpoint of the united states of the western democracies. >> host: aren't there revolving members on the security council as well? >> guest: yes, and oftentimes -- i adjusted in my statement about this. we have 15 members and their rotating. and as with other things at the un, these rotations are generally speaking not pretentious because they just rotate on the completely fixed, kind of geographic basis. there is an order. there is not as much fighting as you think there might be at a. so it is important that we in the stand that we do actually require a vote, not just of the key 5, but the supermajority of the 15 members of that number in order to agree for a security

council action to go forward. so it is not just a case of what the key 5 one. they have the ability to block everything, but they don't have the ability to like everything they make happen. >> host: what does the p stand for? >> guest: permanence. quite possibly the most jargonized -- it makes the department of defense look clear by comparison. >> host: what is the effectiveness -- what is the general assembly and is it effective? >> guest: well, the general assembly is the meeting place of all the nations, and so everybody has one vote, everybody has a voice. you see this every year when the world leaders lined up at the opening of the u.n., so this peak, the general assembly session. they each make your speech. and the good part about it is committed is a place where everyone has some voice.

the bad part is, it is the place where everyone has some voice. and so i think it is generally the bill -- biggest single source of problems with the united nations. and it is because there is no tempering of what goes on. the members of the general assembly both have no capacity to pass truly binding law. in other words, what the general assembly passes are resolutions that do not carry the force of command. and at the same time, they also bear responsibility for anything. so it is the ultimate club. and frankly from the u.s. viewpoint much of what they want to do is not just wasteful, not just waste, but wickedness. there are an awful lot of things that the un general assembly would like to see go forward, or

important sectors would like to see go forward that are really quite bad things. and they are quite willing to cover for the worst members from the human-rights standpoint, from many standpoints. and the nature of such a body and a subsidiary organs that depend upon it within the un institutions tend to be the worst you what -- the worse you are the more you want to be the leader of an organization that might somehow say things about you. so there is a very perverse incentive for the worst actors to actually want to have the most voice at the un because a protect them, and then they create a little protection racket for them and their friends. >> host: in your book, "living the un," you write that the u.s. should seek a buyout of the ua networks and containment of the un.

what to you mean? >> guest: what i mean by that is the general assembly and its tendencies by and large are high style to the united states, wasteful, will basically seat in the resource there is an attempt to use them in ways that are either wasteful or wicked. but there are members of particular institutions of the un, cause i independent bodies that in one sense you could say our branded by the un. they generally speaking have budgets which receive a little bit of funding from the main un budget, but by and large is voluntarily funded by governments that look at what they're doing, like what they're doing, and volunteer to pay for it. the u.s. has a long pattern of trying to look for the ones that work best on this. and in effect, in this book and encouraging the u.s. to do that, look to the ones that are most effective.

a little bit mischievous, essentially saying find them and not these other things. end of this funding is all voluntary, so there is no -- it can not arouse the same kind of controversy that refusing to pay un dues does and large start -- large part because it is voluntary funding. this is the case. our european allies do all the time. the development agencies that they think of the best leaders, they put money into those things and basically what the other ones. at think that is a very good strategy in one of the u.s. ought to be pursuing as much as possible. >> host: what does the un cost the u.s. every year? >> guest: it is not more than a billion dollars. and on the one hand, that is a lot. let me break that down. the actual un dues that the united states pays are at 22% at this point of the total budget. and the budget is set by the

general assembly, and it passed, what it meant was the general assembly consisted largely of very poor state that did not pay the bills but essentially increase the budgets ever more. and then essentially the majority kind of stuck it to the wealthy minority. it was not so much the u.s. that called a halt to that back in the 1910 70's as germany, west germany in those days. and they have all the system in which the consensus basis at this point, the country's oft -- often agree to a budget. it has been going up, but their is a lot of pressure from the u.s. through, i think, one of the finest officials we have. kind of power point guy in dealing with budgets and administration management in these types of issues, all of which are enormously serious. this is an institution that pays them to have to be getting along

well with the people that get permanent positions which are doled out on the basis of nationality, geography, almost anything of incompetence. and once you have one of those positions you're locked into an international civil service job that would make any -- the controversies of a municipal union, kind of controversies here in this country state and local level pale in comparison to the kinds of issues that go on. something in which the official documents of the un say that this civil servants of the un should be paid according to the highest standards of what the highest civil servants make in the world. if you are coming from a very poor country, i certainly don't begrudge one that salary cap as one comes to the un. the incentives that that one step creating, holding on to that job no matter what happens because you are going to go back to your country, to something

which is a completely different standard, it just creates enormous, enormous the difficult incentives. in terms of the total cost of this to the united states, we are talking a few billion dollars. most of which, the vast majority of which at this point is not actually tied up in the required un dues, and it is a mistake, actually, to focus as many conservatives do, on these required un dues. the money is not that much. where the u.s. mostly pays end is in the form of, at this point, peacekeeping operations in which we put in $5 billion may be at this point on a year. and that money is money which we voluntarily put in and that is assessed in one sense, the sense that everyone is going to contribute to that pot and wants to know that its partners are

all agreeing to do the same thing in any given budget cycle because you do not want to be the country that puts in the money and then no one else says, wait a second, now you cannot do anything. so the u.s. puts in this money. other countries put in this money. they say that one of the brides boss of the un, unsurprisingly under the command of the security council is peacekeeping aberrations. the u.s., i believe, recognizes and is recognizable from the bush administration down to the obama administration that peacekeeping operations of the un for all the problems, scandals, and sexual predation and perturb and scandals of ripping off the organization, all of that stuff aside, there is of value that is being provided by peacekeeping operations that is essentially irreplaceable to the united states. we will see is when it comes to places where we're looking to have them perform jobs and would not.

>> host: kenneth anderson, what is the u.s. influence here? >> guest: the u.s. influence in the un is one sense bears largely, but in another sense not to. this is a key point about this book. i have been talking almost exclusively about the un and the u.s. relations to wait as a player within the system. the biggest player, the superpower of all of those things are true. but the most important relationship that the u.s. has to the un is not actually as being the biggest player within the un system. it is rather, the united states operates in effect a parallel system of international order, security, but also economic in which the u.s. provides a vast amounts of, sort of, public goods of the world but a completely outside system. and we run a risk in deciding,

as i think the obama administration has been sorely tempted to say, we don't want to be that hegemonic provider of security and these public goods to the world. let's just be another big player at the un, but just another sort of belly up to the bark and a player at that bar at the un. and let's let the collective worry about it. and the reality of the collective will not worry about it or in warwick -- ways other damaging test. the u.s. does not understand that it guarantees the system as an actor from the outside. the consequences are going to be a scramble among scared and worried rising great powers who we all should fear would come to blows. >> guest: it -- >> host: assess come if you would, the last two u.s. ambassadors to the un? step p20, my.

the last two ambassadors. here's the thing. john bolton was excoriated as someone who despised the un. you could chop off the top seven or ten or however many stories, and no one would notice, the un headquarters. >> guest: -- >> host: do you agree with that statement, by the way? >> guest: i agree about 80%. i sounded quite conciliatory. the message of this book is american liberals need to understand that that is not going anywhere. it is not going to go into this kind of wonderful thing which is going to sort of government the world in some kind of way. american conservatives also need to understand that the un is not going anywhere. they both need to understand it is not going where, but into really different ways. liberals need to understand it is static and is that going to grow or change or evolved. and conservatives need to

understand that it is not going anywhere. it is a promise to -- a permanent institution that we have to deal with. i think john bolton actually recognizes that. but the hostility that he had toward the un meant that he showed up, was there constantly engaged in every aspect of it. i sort of watched him in action during the last spasm of the un reform efforts in 2005, sort of the last gasp as kofi anon as secretary-general, march 10 with orders to take this process seriously. it is as if they hire some lawyers to walk in and negotiate every point as if it mattered, and they hated him for it. the reason they hated him for it is because the dynamic that the

un is supposed to become a you're supposed to take it seriously, but not too seriously. none of this was really quite as serious. ambassador rice started out in doing much of her time at the un , and ambassador to the un who is liked by the un bureaucracy, by the other ambassadors, but there has been a very strong sense that she seized the capital of the world of not in turtle bay but washington d.c. and is actually spending much of her time during the first term in washington, and i think there is a sort of weird sense that bolton hated the institution, but engaged with it at a granular level in which the attitude from the obama administration has been, we love the institution, but we actually

have our own thing going on. i think it is a very open question at this point, which of these two ambassadors and by implication which of these two administrations is actually sizing up and pricing of the un more accurately? the one that paid sick and engages with that in order to sort of really make sure that it does not do anything and the one which apparently on the surface has much more love for it, but the same time is very much more disengaged which is not fair to ambassadress at this point where her engagement is exactly where it should be. she is living day and night in the security council, which is exactly where should be. but i think that those probably were fair criticism staring at her first few years of the obama term. >> host: when has the u.s. sought you and legitimacy? >> guest: most of the time as a parallel to actions that it

was planning on taking anyway. so then iraq we sought legitimacy for the entire -- for something the entire world knew we are going to do no matter what. the u.s. seeks a much less contentious form of you and legitimacy will we do things like support peacekeeping operations. in places in the world where we cannot operate ourselves, would not operate ourselves, would not be -- but our people at risk. breezes of our interests and values an idea think it would be a good idea if someone is on the ground to seek some order in in that case i think we seek you win legitimacy for purchases -- purposes -- >> host: and you write in your book that there is a remarkable disconnect between voting behavior of countries in the general assembly where bloc voting by region and in the it -- in the logical groups wayne

and those countries form relations with the u.s. help countries -- >> guest: help countries ba in the un is occasionally and in the security council most often an indicator of the true interest, that is the permanent five tend to reflect pretty accurately and the security council, where there really -- real interest lies. in the general assembly the dynamic is a close circle of its own universe. as a you have many u.s. allies scattered across the second and third world. latin-american and many other places, who are actually our close allies on many, many, many things. they routinely vote with the sort of large third-world blocks against us on all sorts of things. and that is partly because they perceive the value and kind of stance which puts pressure on the united states to take account of them had to sort of

take them seriously as a naysayer that can only talk, but talk has some -- not a lot, but some influence. second because we, for our part, the united states does not feel that it is worth extracting through pressure or characteristics in their real place, and their capital city, and our diplomacy with someone to my real life with them, concessions or how they behave at the un because frankly we don't think the un is that important. so we don't wind up forcing them to take account of our positions on things, many of which really do matter to less, at least in the general assembly because we do not think it is worth the price they would have to pay and the real world relationships with them in their own country. and we don't. so the disconnect between how we and our allies ba but the un verses what are frequently far

better than our relationships directly and in the capital. >> host: who are the new liberal realists you talk about in your book? >> guest: the obama avenue -- administration came between the two quite different camps on its foreign policy. on the one hand you had a wave of people that i would describe as, typically described as the liberal internationals, people that believe in the mission of the un to not just be this kind of diplomatic table where everybody negotiates and argues and debates and press their views be known, was something which is actually supposed to take on aspects of global governance and take sovereignty from sovereign states. and we, the united states have traditionally been very suspicious of that and have not -- liberal conservative, does not really matter. and the reason is we are the world's hegemon, and we will not end up seeing that authority to the united nations, but there

was a very significant chunk of the incoming foreign policy establishment to the obama administration that really did believe and release of this as the way forward. at the same time, there were counterbalances by a wing of the democratic party and the obama administration. and i say, secretary clinton, neil liberals who have looked at the bush side deals. the college neoconservatism in foreign policy, what is actually the conservative form of idealism about democracy, about transforming countries, about making things better by doing lots and lots of these things. and to more or less conclude that that was just not going to work in that we needed to entrench in become much more realistic our approach to foreign policy. and so i described them as such as they saw themselves as

rejecting neoconservatism but it also involves essentially rejecting a lot of this kind of liberal international stuff that they regarded as kind of soft and squishy. regarded enough in this a way that conservatism regards it. soft and squishy, if not dangerous. and that tendency is very special in one particular way. the bush realist's that a conservative realist's tend to take words very, very seriously. they think that words bind. they think that words have ways to come back and buy you. and so one of the features about bolton and the bush realist's was they're very, very careful negotiation over forms of words. now, if you are the liberal internationalist idealist, soft,