United Nations as 3rd force during Cold War

Much has been made about the PRC and/or the Non-Aligned Movement as a possible force between the dueling superpowers of the Cold War, but those are all Third World countries. What if some secular first-world nations decided not to align with Washington, as in this crazy conservative's interpretation of history, really did work against the U.S. during the Congo Civil War?

Yes, the Congo was an important flashpoint during the Cold War because of it's deposits of minerals & industrial diamonds. Both the US and the Soviet Union had an interest in maintaining access to these resources. Obviously, these interests were potentially threatened by Congolese independence.

Belgium was undeniably an oppressive taskmaster during most of her stewardship over the Congo. But by the time of independence that had changed. First of all, Belgium had decided to grant independence, but wanted to move slowly because, and this was clearly Belgium's own fault, there were so few natives with professional training. But, contrary to Kingsolver's assertion, Congo had one of the highest literacy rates in Africa, over 40%. In addition, industrial production was growing rapidly and the country has vast natural resources. The underlying conditions seemed to be favorable for a gradual transition to a successful independent nation.

Instead, the Congolese demanded immediate independence and Belgium acquiesced. Patrice Lumumba, who even those sympathetic to his cause concede was unbalanced, became the fledgling nation's first Prime Minister on June 30, 1960, and within five days native troops mutinied and began raping and slaughtering whites and natives alike. Belgium sent her own troops back in to try to restore order and Katanga province, under the Christian and pro-Western leader Moise Tshombe, declared its independence from the Congo. Lumumba immediately aligned himself with the Soviet Union.

The UN, under the notoriously anti-Western Dag Hammarskjold, intervened and sent in troops to prop up Lumumba & quell the uprising in Katanga. This intervention was the bloodiest episode in UN history as UN planes actually ran bombing missions in Katanga. The UN troops used in this exercise specifically excluded Western Bloc nations like America. Hammarskjold viewed the UN as a sort of third side in the Cold War; a secular, liberal, non-aligned alternative to East and West.

In the months that followed, President Joseph Kasavubu demanded that Lumumba step down but he refused. Troops under Joseph Mobutu staged a coup and shipped a badly beaten Lumumba to Katanga where he was murdered. (There is some evidence that the CIA wanted Lumumba assassinated, but internal Congolese politics beat them to the punch.) Tshombe eventually abandoned Katanga's drive for secession and became Prime Minister of the entire Congo before Mobutu drove him into exile.
 
Okay, ignoring the craziness of this, but what if the liberal democracies that weren't quite as big on NATO, or the capable third world nations that weren't quite as big on the NAM, decided to work together in a bloc of neutrality via the United Nations? These nations could be members of either of the blocs still, but their main loyalties wouldn't be to either group but to the United Nations itself, as part of the "secular, liberal, non-aligned alternative to East and West."

List of participants in that mission.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Okay, ignoring the craziness of this, but what if the liberal democracies that weren't quite as big on NATO, or the capable third world nations that weren't quite as big on the NAM, decided to work together in a bloc of neutrality via the United Nations? These nations could be members of either of the blocs still, but their main loyalties wouldn't be to either group but to the United Nations itself, as part of the "secular, liberal, non-aligned alternative to East and West."

List of participants in that mission.

I don't think it'd work so well. I'm a fan of the UN and one of it's biggest defenders, but that doesn't mean I'm unrealistic about it's setup. You'd need this group beholden to someone on the security council if you went through the UN.

The kind of thing you're talking about had it's closest real-life equivalent in the tenuous alliance between India, Egypt, and Yugoslavia. They traded technology and were even on their way to developing a light delta-winged combat aircraft until the prototype was bombed in either the Six Day War or Yom Kippur War.

Though Katanga...I'm not that big a fan of. Apparently the UN believes in "sovereign equality of all it's peoples" unless it's Katangans, in which case we might as well just go shoot black people in the Congo.
I do find it funny that they call that the "bloodiest episode in UN history". Apparently the guy's never picked up a history book or heard of Cyprus in '74 or the Medak Pocket. Or Korea.
 
Okay, so what if the France was serious about leaving NATO, and created the developed/Westernized nations version of the Non-Aligned Movement, and this somehow has to do with the United Nations? Going by ONUC participants, possible members could be Argentina, Brazil, India, Ireland and Sweden I guess. I don't know what Austria, Australia, or Norway thought of the U.S. during the Cold War.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Okay, so what if the France was serious about leaving NATO, and created the developed/Westernized nations version of the Non-Aligned Movement, and this somehow has to do with the United Nations? Going by ONUC participants, possible members could be Argentina, Brazil, India, Ireland and Sweden I guess. I don't know what Austria, Australia, or Norway thought of the U.S. during the Cold War.

I just don't see it happening, man. The whole thing with the Non-Aligned Movement was that it wasn't with any of the other powers, and weren't connected to the Cold War combatants in any huge way.

France, for better or worse, was the Cold War combatant in Indochina until America took up the beatup flag and staggered with it for awhile.

What Egypt, India, and Yugoslavia all had to their advantage were nationalist governments/leaders who had external enemies they could rally against but still could use sugar daddies on and off. What India and Yugoslavia had was a measure of self-reliance: they both developed and produced their own cars, tanks, aircraft, heavy consumer products, etc. Other countries did that as well: South Africa and Israel were very self-reliant for the exact same reason. All their neighbours hated them, they had roughly the same type of terrain, weather, and problems, so they grew together.

If you could find countries that ended up having that same kind of relationship like South Africa and Israel did, or like Egypt, India, and Yugoslavia did, then you'd be pretty far ahead.

Part of the problem with using the UN as that power block is that it's not designed to do that. It's like trying to shove an entire ice-cream sundae through a soft-serve machine: there's just too much stuff there for the machinery to take. Sooner or later it going to break down.
 
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