The name "United Nations" generally conjures images of international solidarity, troops in blue uniforms, and other ineffectual BS.
But what if... the UN was actually badass? What if it had the aim of actually uniting the world, in the literal, warlike sense? How would such a monster arise? Would it even be possible? I submit that it would be possible, and if not, it's still one hell of an awesome idea.
So here's the plan:
In WW2, the USA for some reason doesn't join the war, and Japan discovers Daqing in Manchuria. The USSR fights hard, but is unable to push the Germans out completely, so they have a stalemate of many millions dead. Sometime around 1946-48, Germany builds nukes and uses them on Russia and the UK, at which point the USA enters the war and makes its own nukes. The war ends in the early fifties with many cities in ruins, and at least a hundred million dead.
During the course of the war, the UK and USSR are so destabilized and weakened through nuclear exchanges that the USA has to prop them up. A Soviet civil war between Stalinists and revisionists breaks out, and the revisionists side with The USA and win, with the radicals being banished to a Siberian rump state. In Asia, Japan attacks Russia when Germany does, but is still defeated upon US intervention and is split into occupation zones. The KMT doesn't lose control of China, but the CCP runs to Manchuria and becomes neighbors to the Russian hardliners.
The result is that we have an alliance of the USA, UK, USSR, and China occupying devastated Europe and Japan. All of the allies except for the USA will have gone through massive destruction; hence, the USA ends up more or less supporting them all.
Then the UN gets formed, with the goal of actually uniting the world. This is now possible because the USA is by far the greatest power and the other three aren't going to join against it (esp. since USSR and China are fighting civil wars during the UN's formation). And since everyone wants US aid, they join the conglomeration. The biggest hurdle is getting a US president with enough guts to actually draw up these kinds of plans, and elements in the other powers that will agree to them.
So the UN gets formed, and immediately goes about getting other nations to join. But not all is well as the UN policymakers use heavy-handed techniques in suppressing revolts (Stalinists in the USSR and China, colonies) in the name of unification, and soon the new world authority is dealing with a bunch of insurgencies. The next few decades see the UN, with heavy American control, fighting many asymmetrical (and proxy) wars to expand its influence (and of course, to get closer to a world gov.) in the poor regions of the world. Many of these wars would be fought in third-world nations by third-world member sates, with UN4 (the 4 superpowers) support.
The only major enemy (besides insurgencies) to the UN would be the Russian/Chinese East Asian regime, which I see as having nukes early on and being in a Cold War against the UN. They would also promote Marxist radicalism around the world to undermine the UN.
And by the 1980s or 90s, the geopolitical situation stays largely the same; China and Russia have enormous corruption problems, America is the most affluent (and everyone accuse it of controlling the UN), and perhaps the UN forces are off fighting in the Middle East and propping up an unstable Indian government against Stalinist elements.
The red things on the map show major revolts or conflicts. The four "UN superpowers" are shown in sky blue and other members have the purple-blue. Most countries joined because then they would get foreign aid.
The culture and attitude of a UN-dominated world would be rather interesting. I can imagine that pro-globalization propaganda would be everywhere, religious fundamentalism and Communism would be lumped together as "the enemy", and that the "UN4" populace would be very pro-war and pro military-industrial complex. With communism and radical religion being seen as enemies, I can't imagine the same kind of USA that we have OTL which has a large (devoutly) Christian belief, but rather, a powerful secularized state like Turkey.
In the end, I think it is interesting that this TL would look a lot like OTL, with the same problems of globalization, rich-poor gap, and insurgent warfare. The USSR and China of this map are unstable, just like Russia and the PRC are OTL.
Thoughts? Is this too widely ASB to be plausible in the least? I personally think it's an awesome idea.