"Nuclear weapons are virtual weapons, designed and deployed never to be used," he said in an interview, "and this is the best area to seek economy while using our available resources for peacekeeping, or for countering ethnic or religious extremists and the destabilization which follows them".
Bringing Egyptian soldiers into NATO would give it the Arab-Muslim character it needs, make it much easier for NATO to do peacekeeping in Afghanistan and Iraq and provide resources and status for the Egyptian Army, while tying it into the West.
A forthcoming study by Simon Chesterman of New York University points out that a more representative Security Council might be fairer, but not necessarily more effective; efficiency could be helped more by greater transparency, as well as more copious resources (including more peacekeeping troops).Effectiveness, not representativeness, is America's main concern at the UN.
Obama is leading the push with his New York summit on 28 September to seek pledges of troops, equipment and intelligence resources to a revamped peacekeeping operation.
"Peacekeeping needs three things: More financial resources, more and better-trained military and civilian personnel in the field and a coherent command structure overseas with better central direction out of New York," he said.
And in spite of the difficulties of collective decision-making, European resources not only drive peacekeeping operations and development initiatives across the planet, it is Europeans who have done more than anyone else to establish a global legal order and the multilateral economic rules that have allowed globalization to take place since the end of the Cold War.
In recent months, American officials, including UN Ambassador Samantha Power, have called on European countries in particular to commit more resources and troops to peacekeeping deployments.
A commitment to resourcing gender analysis among peacekeeping operations to understand what local women are experiencing.
The AU is trying to improve its peacekeeping capacity, but is desperately short of resources.
Quite clearly we'd like to see this turning into a UN peacekeeping force because you will have better resources and the things that this quite clearly has not had.
The resolution, which could be brought to a vote in coming days, would also raise the possibility of converting a proposed African Union force for the country, known as the International Support Mission in the Central African Republic, into a United Nations peacekeeping operation, which would give it more resources and power.
