The United Nations Security Council is often criticized for being unrepresentative, paralysed by the veto, and impotent in the face of major conflicts. Yet beneath these familiar complaints lies a more profound dilemma: whether international society still believes in the desirability, let alone the possibility, of a global legal order anchored in the Council. This essay situates contemporary reform debates against that larger question. It explores how proposals for modest procedural and working-methods reforms collide with the political reality of entrenched permanent members; how expansion schemes risk draining attention from more feasible fixes; and how normative disagreements expose the fissure between Kelsenian faith in rules and Schmittian insistence on power. Alongside geopolitical tension, the Council must now contend with new existential threats — from climate change to artificial intelligence — that test its mandate and legitimacy. The deeper problem, however, may not be the Council’s structure or procedures, but the mismatch between the expectations placed upon it and what member states are prepared to deliver.