As the UN grew, the ceiling was gradually lowered to maintain political balance with the last reduction in 1973 setting the U.S. portion of the regular budget at 25 percent. By 1973 the regular budget could no longer sustain the peacekeeping responsibilities and a scale was set under which 30 members paid 98 percent of the bills with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council accepting extra responsibility. The rest of the members paid only 2 percent. The assembly was to discuss changes at a later date but never did, so the scale has remained the same for 27 years. This is a national security interest of the United States.
Peacekeeping is highly leveraged.
When conflict prevention fails you end up paying a much larger bill in refugee relief, food assistance and so on. I think the United States has been generous. That is our obligation, it is our commitment. You can't be that on one hand and on the other hand shirk our responsibility for leadership. Nevertheless, he said, all members are concerned that peacekeeping is a core function, but equally concerned that it is an open-ended requirement which fluctuates greatly.