Popularity and Power at the UN

...But members have been very hesitant about resorting to it before a major crisis, i.e., before force has been used by an individual nation...

...The defeat of some of the more extreme anti-colonialist propositions (sanctions against South Africa, the Soviet-sponsored deadline for the end of colonization) shows that irresponsibility is not a foregone conclusion...

...And to let the UN actually try to destroy Tshombe in the future by an all-out use of force would play right into the Communists' hands...

...The UN's later Katanga actions, marking the first time that it has resorted to violence to reach a political goal, may be understandable in context...

...And U.S...

...And when, after having done its best to control a particular flare-up, the UN suggests terms of settlement, it usually finds itself without sufficient power to pressure the parties into a solution...

...If the UN uses force to further certain political objectives when there is no well-defined and sufficiently broad consensus on those objectives, the operation is likely to impair the organization's future usefulness...

...U Thant's initial actions leave room for concern...

...Indeed, precisely because the Afro-Asian group is not united, the real choice the Acting Secretary General faces is whether to pursue a fairly independent line (without losing support) in the interest of UN efficiency and principles, or whether to favor, by his initiatives or by his abstentions, one specific faction within the decisive Afro-Asian group...

...Any political institution must put the water of expediency into its wine...

...It may never be possible again for the Assembly to condemn anti-colonial force...

...The other decisive factor is United States policy...

...The historian of the future may well record that the UN has now entered its fourth phase...

...interests on crucial issues, it would be foolish for Washington not to oppose such a group of nations...

...But there is no denying that seen against the Goa incident, which for the first time found the UN failing to condemn the use of force by a member state, it raises a major problem: Should the international organization be guided by principle or by expediency...

...interests, then it would be necessary for Washington policymakers to heed Senator I. William Fulbright, who recently suggested that "a working concert of free nations" could best be developed outside the UN...

...It may indeed be wise to end Katanga's secession so as to snuff out Communist chances in the Congo...

...This is not yet necessarily so, however...

...India, for example, never brought the Goa dispute to the UN...

...Cases in which the same principle is involved will be dealt with differently, depending on how directly they pose a threat to world peace...

...But letting the UN carry the brunt of the undertaking and exert military pressure is something else again...

...This is precisely the program the Soviets proposed last February...

...and, second, greater foresight in blocking or amending unpalatable resolutions and in backing those African and Asian delegations which take more dispassionate and reasonable stands...

...On paper, the UN's machinery for conciliation, negotiation or mediation is impressive enough...

...But the situation within the UN is still sufficiently fluid: It is too early to throw in the sponge...

...This was dangerous for the Secretary General, who stretched his political role almost to the breaking point, but was quite unassailable from the viewpoint of U.S...

...True, he appointed his assistants so skillfully that he remains free to move in either direction...

...U Thant's position is thus very close to that of the more radical Afro-Asian states, which are eager to put all the blame on Western imperialist intervention...

...One could reply that the UN cannot be an altogether impartial seeker after ideals...

...But his Security Council statements of November 24 reversed Hammarskjold's stand on two counts: He put all the blame for Katanga's secession on foreign mercenaries, rather than on mercenaries and domestic conditions...

...Then came a few years of almost automatic Western majority, culminating in the Korean War...

...It was challenged again, this time by the Soviets and by a number of radical African and Asian states, in the case of the Congo, when it seemed to protect and perpetuate Katanga's secession...

...Whether this margin survives will depend on two factors...

...Too much expediency, however, is dangerous...

...took in the November 24 Security Council debate on the Congo, is that it may increase America's popularity with some of the new nationalist leaders...

...Hammarskjold's last two reports to the General Assembly urged the organization never to lose sight of the ideals in the Charter...

...Washington now faces a tougher problem...

...Stanley Hoffmann, associate professor of government at Harvard, is a close observer of UN activities...

...interests, since Hammarskjold's interpretation did not really threaten them anywhere...

...This is particularly true when the leader is a major power without whose material and financial support the UN could not act...

...Perhaps we are now entering a new phase...

...There were good reasons for Hammarskjold's caution...

...But between this impossibility and a blind endorsement of the more rabid "anti-imperialist" positions (such as questioning the legitimacy of those regimes in the new states which want to preserve close ties with the West), there is still quite a margin...

...If a majority in the Security Council or two-thirds of the General Assembly proposed policies which clashed with U.S...

...The alternative may be less popular and easy, but it may ultimately be much wiser...

...But "any result bought at the price of a compromise with the principles or ideals of the organization, either by yielding to force, by disregard of justice, by neglect of common interests or by contempt for human rights, is bought at too high a price...

...success on the issue of seating Communist China shows that Washington can get results if it tries...

...This was followed by the Hammarskjold phase, during which there was no clear-cut, all-purpose majority and the organization was so balanced it could operate as a genuine international service only in areas outside the cold war...

...The anti-colonial majority has become so great, and frustration about limiting or liquidating the cold war so deep, that in the future the UN may merely accelerate anti-colonialism, and sanction anti-colonial actions of whatever origin or nature...

...Yet the shelving of the Soviet scheme merely makes such an executive possible...

...This narrow interpretation was challenged by Lester Pearson, among others, during the 1956 Suez crisis, for it seemed to allow the Egyptians to get away with the seizure of the Suez Canal...

...If U Thant proves to be less active, or if he endorses a policy of straight anticolonialism, Washington will have to decide at last whether to go along with anything that might emerge from the Afro-Asian group, even if the balance within it shifts away from the moderates, or whether to use its influence more forcefully...

...Should we fail to convince the UN to act in a manner which does not violate either Charter ideals or U.S...

...It reduces the willingness of nations to let the UN play the role of deus ex machina in emergencies...

...Even with the help of the Soviet bloc, the strength of the Afro-Asian "bloc" is well below two-thirds of the General Assembly, and it is far from being a homogeneous group...

...For most of Hammarskjold's time in office, the UN's very structure helped the Secretary General steer it in the direction he wanted...

...Neither the eloquence of UN recommendations, nor the skill of its mediators or committees, nor any additions to the UN diplomatic machinery can substitute for more compelling means of persuasion...

...It would ruin our own chances of affecting the political future of the Congo...

...The first is the Secretary General himself...

...The late Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold took a very restrictive view of the role of UN forces: They were intended to separate adversaries, not to coerce them into accepting political solutions...

...But as Raymond Aron has pointed out, popularity and power are two very different things, and the United States risks undermining its alliance as well as those African and Asian leaders who have sympathized with the West...

...The pursuit of principles can be defended not only for its own sake, but also as a more prudent policy...

...In the past, Washington tended to "let Dag do it...

...It might have Jo compromise from time to time in those areas where it is without influence—i.e., in direct EastWest clashes or in issues such as Hungary...

...Much will depend on the Acting Secretary General: Will he try, as his predecessor did, both to interpret resolutions in a way which makes them as consonant as possible with basic Charter principles, and to get such resolutions adopted...

...First, there was the idea of the greatpower concert, which never got a chance...

...It would mean, first of all, more determined efforts outside the UN to settle dangerous disputes before the temptation of violence seizes either the parties involved or the world body itself...

...The only thing to be said for the former line, which is the one the U.S...

...and he declared that the UN must sympathize with Leopoldville's fight against secession, whereas his predecessor had been reluctant to let the UN appear as the arm of the otherwise weak Central Government...

...The only weapon the UN has is its own military presence...

...After all, no leader is condemned to follow blindly those he tries to lead...

...it does not make it certain...

...or will he act merely as the agent of his constituents...

...When Hammarskjold died, there was some danger that the idea of an effective international Secretariat would die with him: The Soviet troika plan was clearly aimed at making an independent executive impossible...