Playing rules-lawyer here is comical. Why not put San Marino in? As a republic for 1700 years, they are clearly the standard-bearer for modern government. Th

Playing rules-lawyer here is comical. Why not put San Marino in? As a republic for 1700 years, they are clearly the standard-bearer for modern government. The Security Council was clearly meant to be a military/economic shortlist: the people we have to invite to the discussion because if we snub them, they can singlehandedly trigger a global fracas. They may not have wanted to list specific criteria, but it's a club that's fairly obvious who belongs. Russia has clearly proven it still qualifies for that, in a way no other post-Soviet state has. The ROC-PRC shift was an obvious implementation of the fact the world has stopped ignoring Beijing.