Ashes of Katanga: a United Nations with teeth?

This is not an actual timeline, but yet again I create a poetic-sounding title to lure people in with false promises of a timeline! Actually I wanted to propose an idea: what if certain events, including Dag Hammarskjöld not dying, led to the U.N. to continue to operate with a strong peacekeeping component staffed with first world soldiers, after the Congo Crisis? I'm mainly thinking of an international agreement being signed forbidding mercenaries- and even if the United States vetoes it, the U.N. goes ahead and creates anti-mercenary groups in response to their presence in the Congo.
 
The best POD IMO is if you can create a scenario where the UN suddenly needs to use force---either its' forces are attacked, or some nations/paramilitary groups flagrantly violate international law in front of UN forces. This precedent would be enormous in creating some kind of UN strike force.
 
I was thinking the Global Defence Initiative would be a good name for a modern, powerful UN worldwide strikeforce.
 
I humbly suggest:
Supreme Headquaters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division with their major problem consistend in a ruthless conglomerate who finance coup and sell weapon and mercenaries across all the globe the.
Command Organizated for Battle and Reserch Associated.

In a more serious tone, the problem are URSS and USA and in a minor fashion UK and France, having a blue helment force with the teeth and probably political autonomy can create a lot of problem for their politics on the third world and even if the UN ignore the veto, their are the greatest financer of the organization, if they stop giving money (with some excuse or simply as protest) the United Nations risk the collapse.
Maybe with a stronger Non-aligned movement or a worse decolonization (a Somalia or Rwanda like situation in the 60) something can be obtained, but the big two will must be adressed.
 
The best POD IMO is if you can create a scenario where the UN suddenly needs to use force---either its' forces are attacked, or some nations/paramilitary groups flagrantly violate international law in front of UN forces. This precedent would be enormous in creating some kind of UN strike force.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I think using the Congo Crisis would make a good starting point for this- Hammarskjöld was a very proactive SecGen, and the possibility of foul play involved in his passing makes it interesting. Let's say Dag was targeted by mercenaries hired by whichever intelligence agency- the South Africans, perhaps. The mercs are caught, sanctions are passed, and the U.N. manages to squeeze in an anti-PMC resolution decades before it's become a hot button issue. This is all due to international outrage at the attempted assassination. Not only that, the U.N. peacekeepers are augmented by more formal structure, eventually leading to the creation of a unit specifically for anti-partisan operations... including against non-state actors such as mercenaries.

The nations supporting this are not the P5 (except perhaps France!) but the second-tier nations that composed the Suez and Congo missions. Especially Canada.

Another proposal:


With a POD anywhere after the UN's foundation, and attempting to preserve as much else as possible as it was in OTL, can you have the UN have a permanent military force, essentially a force of mercenaries, known as the UN Foreign Legion, with which it conducts peacekeeping operations in areas termed to be in need of such services and generally tries to keep the world sane and a better, genocide-free place, even though it often screws up, especially in Balkan-type situations? It should be essentially mercenary in character, and you're aiming for a force which is normally between 10,000 and 70,000 mercs in size...

For bonus points, can you have other major powers, besides the French, have large foreign legions they use for neocolonialist meddling in foreign countries?


Fellas, I did a thesis on the UN 1 of whose chapters covered this exact topic, so I'm pretty familiar with this issue. There are plenty of int'l law journals about the UN having its own standing army, including with the implementation of Art. 43 agreements (no country has ever signed 1, so it's all a dead letter) which allow the UN to have national armed forces signed over to fulfil the Charter's Ch. VII peace-enforcement purposes directly under its command and control, and other proposals under Art. 97 iirc for the UN to have its own directly-recruited military force, similar to the Secretariat, although such a force would probably only be speculated at approx 5,000-10,000. Such latter proposals, which included a 1993 article written by former Under-SG Sir Brian Urquhart (who had also been a 1st Airborne Div intel officer leading up to Op MARKET GARDEN) discussed the possibilities of hiring Gurkhas to fight for the UN, in the same manner as they serve the British Army, or to directly recruit individuals in the same manner as the FFL. Thus far, I believe the only time the UN has recruited its own armed personnel directly was with the lightly-armed 500-strong UN Guards Contingent in northern Iraq from 1991, who took over from the coalition Op PROVIDE COMFORT force providing humanitarian relief to Kurdish refugees.

Hmmm, maybe 1 viable way you can begin to have a UN standing army a la foreign legion, but not of course of the sizes you're mentioning, would be to have the UN from the early 1990s subcontracting private military cos. like EO and Sandline after seeing their phenomenal success in combatting war crimes-committing irregulars in Sierra Leone and Angola, and perhaps even if the SC had adopted ADL's 1994 proposal to employ private security guards to disarm the Hutu armed extremist elements in the Zairean refugee camps. There are BTW also many int'l legal journal articles discussing this concept.
 
Last edited:
This is not an actual timeline, but yet again I create a poetic-sounding title to lure people in with false promises of a timeline! Actually I wanted to propose an idea: what if certain events, including Dag Hammarskjöld not dying, led to the U.N. to continue to operate with a strong peacekeeping component staffed with first world soldiers, after the Congo Crisis? I'm mainly thinking of an international agreement being signed forbidding mercenaries- and even if the United States vetoes it, the U.N. goes ahead and creates anti-mercenary groups in response to their presence in the Congo.

The best POD IMO is if you can create a scenario where the UN suddenly needs to use force---either its' forces are attacked, or some nations/paramilitary groups flagrantly violate international law in front of UN forces. This precedent would be enormous in creating some kind of UN strike force.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I think using the Congo Crisis would make a good starting point for this- Hammarskjöld was a very proactive SecGen, and the possibility of foul play involved in his passing makes it interesting. Let's say Dag was targeted by mercenaries hired by whichever intelligence agency- the South Africans, perhaps. The mercs are caught, sanctions are passed, and the U.N. manages to squeeze in an anti-PMC resolution decades before it's become a hot button issue. This is all due to international outrage at the attempted assassination. Not only that, the U.N. peacekeepers are augmented by more formal structure, eventually leading to the creation of a unit specifically for anti-partisan operations... including against non-state actors such as mercenaries.

The nations supporting this are not the P5 (except perhaps France!) but the second-tier nations that composed the Suez and Congo missions.

What happens when they fight the IDF?
 
Ideally, the efficient and highly effective diplomatic wranglings of the UN would avert a military confrontation in as sensitive a region as the Middle East.;)
 
Well, unlike prior threads I'm not stipulating that this hypothetical U.N. would be potent enough to act like some sort of international authority that could actually go traipsing around the Holy Land. Rather, I'm suggesting how it could be militarily more coherent to the extent of fielding a unit designed to fight mercenaries and other non-state actors. IDF is not a non-state actor. You do the math.

That said, I do like the proposal in another thread that instead of the U.N. creating some sort of formal army that turns out to be a political nightmare, it creates a U.N. Navy. This navy could be used to ferry ad hoc created peacekeeping missions or all sorts of international humanitarian aid efforts. The idea there is not that nations who would contribute to peacekeeping lack troops, but rather they lack the ships to deliver the troops. That could be an associated idea to this thread's premise.

That said, ultimately all I want is a scenario where Canadian/Italian/Irish/Swedish/Ethiopian/Thai/Bengal/Ghanan peacekeepers armed with the best in European weaponry engage in fights with mercs and other irregular guerilla types. I want those SWAT-looking MNU troopers in shiny black armor from District 9 to fight the Afrikaaner-looking PMC thugs, while the Nigerian gangsters join into the crossfire.

Relevant threads:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=139947
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=137788

Paging MacCaulay and Melvin Loh (where'd he go?) to this thread.
 
On the vein of a UN navy, considering the theoretical primary role of PMC's in most cases is logistical support and security guard in a warzone type duties, a well organized and well equipped force designed to facilitate forces from national armies on UN-sanctioned peacekeeping missions seems like an option. Over time this would probably help the UN when more developed countries are unwilling to contribute large troop numbers, as they might be able to facilitate the effective mobilization and modern logistical coordination of troops from developing countries. It would also be useful to coordinate between units from different nations, speaking different languages and using different equipment from each other.

Useful components like armed air and naval support could be justified as simply being direct defense of the transportation of aid supplies.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
On the vein of a UN navy, considering the theoretical primary role of PMC's in most cases is logistical support and security guard in a warzone type duties, a well organized and well equipped force designed to facilitate forces from national armies on UN-sanctioned peacekeeping missions seems like an option.

When Katanga happened, the concept of a PMC really didn't exist yet. And if it did, it was very nascent.

In Katanga, you had Mike Hoare and others running around shooting at UN troops.

That being said, I've always said that the best way to get a more militant UN would be to have Dag Hammersjkold live. That guy was really proactive. And it didn't help that he was replaced by about the most pacifist UN Secretary General in history: U Thant.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Useful components like armed air and naval support could be justified as simply being direct defense of the transportation of aid supplies.

Yeah. That could work. Corvettes, Avisos and Frigates would easily be able to cover the escort role, and serve as viable patrol vessels as well without being big enough to cause any major political issues (especially if they're officially referred to as being a Coast Guard instead of an actual navy.

SAAB Tunnans, Lansens and Drakens could perform most escort duties (why SAAB you say? Because the Swedes would likely be the only ones willing to foot an air force under many circumstances, with the Canadians being the Junior Partner in that regard.)

This would give the Soviets so many more headaches though, Especially if the Cubans developed an off-and-on relationship with the UN RRF or whatever it was called. But If it's independent enough from Western/NATO influences, and does the sort of stuff that Fidel's folks wanted to do, It wouldn't surprise me if there was always a Cuban Battalion (probably reinforced with a few dozen more Medics,) on call or deployed, along with a Canadian Regiment and a Swedish one as well, at least in the sixties, although later on, India and Brazil likely would join the show and each contribute massively.
 
We must keep in mind, that Dag Hammersjkold took the flight, which lead to his death, because the UN-forces in Katanga got their asses kicked. After what I heard about the UN-Forces in Kongo, they acted the most time like the Keystone-Cops. The problem is, that the UN is no state. She can´t raise their own army or money for such an army. And if we take OTL as example, I doubt it will be possible to form a effective fighting force out divergent contingents of small neutral european, african and asian Nations. Would such Nations like Ireland, Austria and Sweden even still send troops for the UN if it include real fighting and would soldiers be ready to die for the UN? I serious doub this.
 
Top