The United Nations remains essential to US foreign policy, and the US should see new UN reform proposals as a "very encouraging recognition" of its concerns, according to a former national security adviser.

Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser to George H.W. Bush, was the American member of a high-level panel set up to study the UN's future. "There are some points where the US doesn't get the freedom of action it would like, but all the steps are forward not backward," he told the Financial Times.