WI: Indochina War is internationalised like the Korean War

In March 1953, a large and very successful Vietminh drove a new front in Laos and almost conquered Lao's capital. This prompted the King of Laos as well as the French government (as Laos was an associated state), to consider asking the UN to help out like the Koreans did in the Korean War only 3 years before that.

The idea was debated by the French Council of Ministers and had the support from some segments of the military as well as the Premier, the President of the Republic and the Minister for National Defence, René Pleven, but the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Georges Bidault was against it and he imposed his will.

So, your challenge would be, that in the case Bidault is overridden by his colleagues, what would be the consequences of the Laos and French governments asking the UN to intervene to stop communism from spreading to south-east Asia?

Surely the Soviets would veto a Security Council resolution?

Korea already taught them never to boycott.

Just a Rube said:

Surely the Soviets would veto a Security Council resolution?

Korea already taught them never to boycott.

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Maybe the US and the Western Allies will join France? This is the sort of thing I'd like to know

Maybe this triggers an earlier version of Uniting For Peace then?

Tom Colton said:

Maybe this triggers an earlier version of Uniting For Peace then?

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Could you elaborate? What's the Uniting for Peace?

Bump filler

One last bump for attention.

The Google is Your Friend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_377

It was already on the books by your POD, though the first use of the powers granted didn't come OTL until the Suez Crisis in '56.

It might work; it might not -- a number of countries who would have supported the Korean intervention might balk at the colonialism of the French side in Indochina. I can't say that for certain, however.

Adding to my own thread, an idea just came to me about this. If the Indochina war is internationalized in 1953, that would probably prevent the Berlin and then the Genevan Conferences from taking place in 1954, as West-East relations would be worse than OTL, so what could have been the consequences of this? A prolonged Korean war or perhaps even a divided Austria?

Nanwe said:

Adding to my own thread, an idea just came to me about this. If the Indochina war is internationalized in 1953, that would probably prevent the Berlin and then the Genevan Conferences from taking place in 1954, as West-East relations would be worse than OTL, so what could have been the consequences of this? A prolonged Korean war or perhaps even a divided Austria?

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Korea would likely go OTL, Austria, probably not.

In addition to the Soviet veto, there's another problem- Korea was a "clear" cross-border invasion. Indochina was an internal rebellion.

There were, as a matter of fact, plans for South Korea to join the Indochina War.

Australia did actually sent troops to Vietnam, particularly in the isolated rural areas...

cpip said:

It might work; it might not -- a number of countries who would have supported the Korean intervention might balk at the colonialism of the French side in Indochina. I can't say that for certain, however.

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While I think there's a number of other reasons why the OP scenario wouldn't happen (SEATO doesn't even exist at this point; America is already bankrolling the anti-Red war effort, and yet they refused to intervene at DBP when the time came; I don't for a second believe Giap could capture and hold a major city on the Mekong, right across from the way from Thailand), the interesting stuff regarding what you raise RE colonialism is (a.) the French Bao Dai puppet regime in Vietnam (which is essentially King Farouk East, in terms of how it can be promoted to foreigners as a reliable entity), and (b.) the Laotian aristocratic leadership, who in OTL splintered into Left/centre/Right after the Geneva partition, and thence into a more polarised Left/Right divide during the Kennedy years.

It was a real mess. French geopolitics at its worst?

I wasn't talking about whether the Reds could take over the city, but rather, that when they became dangerously close to the city of Phnom Penh, the French thought very seriously about asking for an international intervention. In fact, the French did not want to ask for the intervention themselves, but through the Indochinese puppets, but since the Soviets blocked their membership, France would have to do it herself.

Now, it is possible that the Soviets vetoed it, in which case, could the US go ahead and support Bao Dai (since officially the Indochinan countries were independent) and the other monarchies in the regon against the commies bypassing the UN?

After all, the French already lived off American money to pay for the war and indeed, a direct intervention would put all French fears to bed and also force them into passing the EDC back in Europe. But then again, I don't know much about Asia at the time, which why I was asking.

Also, at the time, the French were trying very hard to build up a proper Vietnam royal army, which could increase the legitimacy of the pro-French forces?

But this is all still before OTL's Dien Bien Phu crisis, right?

We know what happened then; President Eisenhower essentially let US congress and Winston Churchill's govt talk him out of bombing the Viet Minh units besieging France's main combat forces.

Okay, it was a tactical nuclear attack he (and the Brits) avoided committing to. But I argue that your W-I of the US and UK et al getting involved with boots on the ground is as similar a hard task, if not more, than DBP intervention.

In a sense, I think the debate about how to use international processes to build a coalition is superfluous to this problem of Do Not Want Directly Into France's Asian Land War.

I'm not saying it can't be done. Just it needs a whole series of changes in thinking at DC and London, beyond the influence of a simple French cabinet request, UN assembly be damned.