The United Nations

on the World Today

THE United Nations was brave and firm in dealing with the Suez-Palestine crisis. Its failure to take effective action on the simultaneous Hungarian crisis, or even to make convincing gestures, is a paradox that merits careful study. Although the revival of the Kashmir question attracted much less attention, the handling of it by the United Nations also showed distinct caution.

Senator Knowland of California, who was host known theretofore for his efforts in behalf of the Chiang Kai-shek regime on Formosa, came to the defense of Israel when the crisis over Israel’s final withdrawal from Egyptian territory arose in February. He could see no reason why Israel should be subjected to economic sanctions when the United Nations had failed to impose such punishment upon the Soviet Union, which had defied General Assembly resolutions and suppressed the Hungarian revolt. He objected also that the Security Council had done nothing when India, instead of allowing a plebiscite, annexed the Indian-occupied part of Kashmir. Many Americans agree with Knowland, all the more so because of Egypt’s previous violations of United Nations decisions.

Leaving aside the question whether Israel or Egypt was more to blame for the border incidents which have threatened the continuance of the armistice settlement of 1949, there is no doubt about Egypt’s refusal to comply with the Security Council resolution of 1951 on the Suez Canal. This resolution rejected the Egyptian argument that, in the absence of an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, Egypt had the right, as a belligerent, to deny the use of the canal to Israeli ships.

Egypt took this position before Colonel Nasser came to power, while the Universal Suez Canal Company was still operating the canal and while Britain still maintained a garrison in the canal zone. The failure of the United States, along with Britain and France, to do anything to enforce the resolution of 1951 was clearly one of the basic reasons for the nationalization of the canal and the Israeli and British-French attacks on Egypt last autumn. And Egypt’s continuing claim to belligerent rights was the principal reason for Israel’s belief that a withdrawal from the Gulf of Aqaba area would be followed by the restoration of the Egyptian blockade. The problem is, as President Eisenhower pointed out, whether two wrongs make a right.

The rejection by Egypt of the Security Council resolution of 1951 and of the half-dozen Assembly resolutions of 1956 and 1957 calling for complete and unconditional withdrawal, the Soviet Union’s violation of Hungary, India’s annexation of the more valuable part of Kashmir — all these actions arc reprehensible. Why does not the United Nations act with uniform sternness toward all of those responsible? In particular, why does not the United States, as the leading member of the United Nations, insist upon “equal justice under law”?

The fear of war

Insofar as effective action is concerned, it was obvious from the start of the Hungarian tragedy that neither the United Nations nor the United States was going to do anything besides talk. It is all very well to say that the United Nations should administer the same treatment to one of the two superpowers that it does to the tiny state of Israel. But the kind of pressure that would have been needed to bring the Kremlin to terms would almost, certainly have risked a third world war.

The military power of India, of course, is not to be compared with that of the Soviet Union. But practical considerations also played their part in the failure of the Security Council to do anything more than pass another resolution calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir. If fully applied, economic sanctions would hurt India and might even compel Nehru to give way. But the Soviet bloc and the Asian-African countries, with a few exceptions, would not carry them out. And if the United States had supported such a move, there would have been a very real danger of throwing all the Asian and Arab neutralists into the Soviet camp.

Actually, however, no such action against either the Soviet Union or India was ever discussed — for the simple reason that there would have been no chance of getting it approved by either the Security Council or the General Assembly.

The Soviet veto in the Security Council, of course, is nothing new, and in fact has dominated the United Nations ever since the Iranian crisis eleven years ago. What is new is the use of that veto to block action in disputes to which neither the Soviet Union nor any of its satellites is a party. In 1948 and 1949 the relatively successful handling of the small wars in Palestine, Indonesia, and Kashmir was made possible by the willingness of the Soviet Union to go along with the majority.

Since 1954, however, when the Soviet Union vetoed the reaffirmation of the 1951 Suez resolution, its veto, or the threat of a veto, has prevented the Security Council from taking any decision contrary to the wishes of the Arab states.

The Asian-African bloc

The Soviet Union, together with the Asian-African bloc, now holds a similar veto in the General Assembly. This is a direct result of the deal sponsored by Canada in December, 1955, under which the principle of universality of membership — with the exception of the divided governments of Germany, Korea, and Viet Nam —was formally accepted. Sixteen applicants, including all the European states except Switzerland (which does not want to join) and the two Germanics, were then admitted. The all-important fact was that there are no more European or LatinAmerican states to bring in, while the number of newly independent countries in Asia and Africa is constantly increasing. With the further admission last fall of Japan, Morocco, Tunisia, and the Sudan, the AsianAfrican bloc rose to twenty-seven out of a total of eighty.

A few of its members, notably the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan, have such close ties with the United States that they break away from the bloc occasionally. But the Soviet bloc has now increased to nine, and in fact it can be counted as ten, since Yugoslavia usually votes on the Soviet side.

This means that the combined Asian-African and Soviet blocs can block Assembly resolutions on political disputes, which require a twothirds majority. Within a year or so, when Malaya, the Gold Coast, and a few more countries achieve independence and scats in the Assembly, the Asian-African bloc will have one third plus one of the votes, and will not need Soviet support.

The control of the Asian-African group is not quite as complete as the above figures indicate. For one thing, members absent or abstaining from the vote are not counted in calculating the two thirds; as in all United Nations blocs, some of the members resort to this device when faced with a particularly difficult voting problem. For another, its members do not all love one another, as witness the hostility between Pakistan and India, and between Iraq and the Syrian-Egyptian partnership. This prevents the group from functioning with military precision.

Moreover, the Soviet Union does not always vote with the AsianAfrican bloc, and vice versa; it abstained on the latest Kashmir resolution and has deep-seated objections to the use of the Assembly for enforcement action.

Opposition to the West

Nevertheless, the increasing power of the Asian-African bloc will have consequences as important as the breakdown of great-power coöperation had after the Charter was written at San Francisco. Already the United Nations is developing into an anticolonial forum. The anticolonial countries, with a few exceptions, call themselves neutralist, uncommitted to either the Soviet Union or the West. This was disturbing enough as long as it could be translated as meaning a plague on both sides. But the attitudes taken in recent years by Nehru and Nasser, in particular, seemed to indicate active opposition to the West.

The very existence of the hydrogen bomb is enough to compel the AsianAfrican countries to seek a compromise on any issue that could even remotely threaten a world war. Although they have gained political independence, their industrial backwardness prevents them from producing bombs in the immediate future at least. As a result they are weaker in the atomic age than they were when their countries were being overpowered by the superior rifles and Gatling guns of the Western colonial powers. To these neutralists must be added Sweden, Greece — which has quarreled with Britain and Turkey over Cyprus—and a number of Latin-American countries.

The net result is that the United Nations is no longer an effective instrument for collective security, and would not he even if it had strong military forces at its disposal. There would still remain the necessity of obtaining authorization to use the force. The Soviet veto in the Security Council and the Asian-African-Soviet veto in the General Assembly are both symptoms of the two basic facts about the United Nations today: the continued disunity among the great powers, and the dilution of the collective strength of the United Nations, which started out as a continuation of the wartime alliance against the Axis but has been transformed as a result of the membership deal.

The UN stops the fighting

Why, then, did the United Nations act with such speed and vigor in the Middle Eastern crisis? The series of Middle Eastern resolutions adopted by the Assembly in November and December, together with the reports in which the Secretary General outlined the action he planned to take under them, constitutes one of the most remarkable records of achievement in the history of any international organization.

Britain, France, and Israel were induced to stop lighting before they had achieved the objectives which led them to start their adventure. Britain and France, after some arguments about what would happen if they left, withdrew unconditionally, and Israel began to withdraw. A United Nations Emergency Force was quickly organized on entirely different lines from those laid down either in t he Charter or in the “Uniting for Fence" resolution of 1950. And Mr. Hammarskjold, without even waiting for Assembly authorization, began making arrangements with Dutch and Danish private contractors for the removal of the ships Egypt had sunk in the canal.

All these actions were supported by overwhelming votes in the Assembly. Although some Western European delegations abstained, only Australia and New Zealand dared to join the British, the French, and the Israeli delegations in opposing any of them. Despite the increased size of the Asiun-Af rican and Soviet blocs, there was no difficulty in mobilizing the strength of the United Nations to restore the situation to where it was on October 28.

The reason, of course, was that the Asian-African bloc considered the attacks on Egypt a manifestation of colonialism of the old gunboat style. And the Soviet Union could hardly overlook such an opportunity to weaken the two most important members of NATO, the United States excepted. The majority was swelled by the votes of the Latin-American countries, which were inclined to he sympathetic with Israel but could not tolerate the interventions by Britain and France.

But the decisive factor, insofar as the Assembly majorities were concerned, was the attitude of the United States. There were, of course, other factors, including the Soviet threats — in language as cloudy as an Assembly resolution — to send “volunteers" to help Egypt and, perhaps, to launch rockets against Britain and France. But the determination of the United States to stop the attacks was the most important single reason.

If the United States had failed to react with such vigor, the British, French, and Israeli forces would certainly have taken the entire canal zone, and Colonel Nasser’s downfall would have resulted from the military debacle. On the other hand, the name of all the Western powers, including the United States, would have been mud. For the time being, at least, the United States assuredly has strengthened its popularity in the Asian and African countries. I low long this will last, once the United States starts to rebuild the Western Alliance, is a question.

Perhaps the best, explanation for the United States position is the simple fact that the United Nations Charter requires the peaceful settlement of all disputes. Resort to force is permitted only on the recommendation of the United Nations or under the right of collective and individual self-defense.

What is “aggression"?

According to the standards of the Charter, there was no doubt that Britain, France, and Israel had been guilty of aggression, even though the Assembly has never made that finding. The difficulty is that the Charter gives no definition of indirect aggression, nor have United Nations legal experts been able to agree on one. The Charter contains no provision against the use of guerrillas to harass an enemy, nor does it say what can be done if there is no way of redress by peaceful means against such unilateral actions as the nationalization of the canal company. It is all a question of who was the first to march troops across a frontier.

Egypt had used the Gaza Strip as the jump-off for guerrilla raids against Israel, and the Gulf of Aqaba area to stop ships bound for Elath, the isolated port which could give Israel access to the Eastern oceans. Israel demanded safeguards against the resumption of such hostile actions and refused to withdraw from either area until safeguards were established.

Israel stands firm

Egypt and the other Arab states continued to insist on unconditional withdrawal, but Israel feared that a mere restoration of the status quo ante would bring another crisis.

Mr. Hammarskjold called for a return to the “status juris,” not the status quo ante— in other words, to the armistice settlement of 1940 as it was intended to work. Israel, however, considered Mr. Hammarskjold’s plan inadequate, and the Secretary General later reported that his efforts to obtain a final Israeli withdrawal had been “frustrated.”

As a. result of the impasse, the United States decided to negotiate directly with Israel. But even the implied threat that the United States would otherwise support economic sanctions against Israel failed to overcome Israel’s insistence upon specific guarantees.

Partly as a result of the intervention of Guy Mollet, the French Prime Minister, and his Foreign Minister, the Israelis firmly announced that they would withdraw on certain “assumptions” rather than on conditions. The speech by Mr. Lodge, who took the floor after Mrs. Meir, Israel’s Foreign Minister, more or less repeated the assurances — or expressions of intent. — previously given by Secretary Dulles. In addition, Mr. Lodge endorsed the Hammarskjold doctrine that full compliance with the armistice would eliminate the ground for exercise of belligerent rights.

But Mr. Lodge’s speech was hardly a model of clarity, and the same day Mr. Dulles called in the Washington ambassadors of nine Arab States and insisted that the United States had given no “guarantees” to Israel. But a letter from President Eisenhower, in which he promised David Ben Gurion that the United States would see that Israel’s hope “proved not to be in vain,” gave Israel at least minimum assurance and it finally decided to withdraw.

Israel’s final withdrawal was, in fact, based on two considerations: a threat to fight Egypt again if a blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba were imposed or if the border raids started up again; and a general pledge of support, from the United States on these issues.

In the final analysis it was clear that the chances of restoring stability and working out a permanent solution in the Middle East depended on the United States. It was doubtful that the United Nations would be able to take effective action, in view of the strength of the combined AsianAfrican and Soviet blocs in the General Assembly. The situation was all the more confused because of the ambiguous language in the various documents — the Assembly resolutions, the reports by the Secretary General, the statements by American and Egyptian officials. Certainly the United Nations had failed to give a definite answer to the fundamental questions: —

Would either the Assembly or Mr.

Hammarskjold agree to have the United Nations Emergency Force stationed in the two trouble areas? Would Egypt permit the force to go there in the first place, and then to stay on long enough to carry out the objectives laid down by Mr. Hammarskjold and the United States?

These unanswered questions showed that Israel would take risks by withdrawing under such an indefinite agreement. But there would also have been risks if the United States had lost patience and given its support to economic sanctions.