CIMUN XXII COnference in review

As discussed in our State of the World brief, 1956 was a turning point for the international community and global politics. The international community is still settling into a stable equilibrium after the Second World War. While institutions like the United Nations exist, and the Cold War hasn’t yet settled into its most dramatic and confrontational disposition, things are far from peaceful. Without relitigating the entirety of our State of the World document, our simulation starts at a period in time where the global order was unstable, and each of our cabinets is presented with forks in the road.

The United States and Soviet Union are both faced with a choice between reinforcing the developing global consensus. Either one might benefit from a more belligerent stance, but reinforcing global institutions has the potential to benefit both superpowers at the expense of second rate powers such as the United Kingdom or France.

Meanwhile, these second rate powers shift uncomfortably at a world that is quickly moving past them. British leadership, especially in the highly aristocratic and insular circles of the Prime Ministry, still believes that the Commonwealth of Nations and British Empire are a path to be a third superpower. France, in a similar vein, seeks to hold onto its colonial empire from Algeria to Vietnam. A mere year after defeat in Vietnam became evident, this contraction in empire only serves to embolden further recommitment to war in Algeria, and hostility towards Egypt.

In the Middle East, Israel is acutely aware of the hostility it faces from its neighbors, and of the necessity of maintaining international allies in order to maintain its military defenses. Meanwhile, Colonel Nasser in Egypt is securing a regime that he knows faces hostility from global powers. The Egyptian monarchy Nasser overthrew had been British-backed, and there are historical reports that Nasser’s CIA-trained security forces repeatedly faced off against British attempts to unseat the Egyptian president. Egypt and Israel represent two different nations attempting to build a place within the world-system, and hyper-aware that their regimes are unstable in the context of global power contests.

In Vietnam, a more traditional Cold War dynamic plays out. Though the Geneva Accords have brought the nation’s civil war to a temporary ceasefire, both North and South Vietnam are biding their time in preparation for a renewed phase of hostilities. In the North and South alike, ideological enemies are targeted for persecution, and the realities of attempting to build a modern military. Each attempts to balance a desire for independence and sovereignty against the allure, and indeed necessity, of cooperation with a superpower.

Finally, our Ad-Hoc: the Algerian National Liberation Front, and our Secret Program: Marmalade. In Algeria, disparate groups come together, making similar balancing decisions as do the leadership of North and South Vietnam. However, Algeria has a much less established leadership structure. Different factions within the FLN compete for leadership, fighting for a free Algeria which is more secular, more religious, more capitalist, more socialist, and of course, each angling to put their own personal interests at the head of the nation.

For those who are unaware, Marmalade was a departure from the traditional CIMUN model. Five delegates arrived at our conference, having been assigned secret positions by their advisors. They were pulled aside and informed of information that no delegate, advisor, or the majority of our staff had been informed of: that they would be representing agents of the Soviet KGB in addition to their cabinet roles. In this program, delegates were encouraged to understand the quick decision-making and paranoia inherent to the shifting loyalties and types of pressure global leaders were subjected to during this period. At the start of our simulation, these delegates are faced with a new and unexpected component of their participation in the conference, and must find their footing while avoiding broader detection.

In terms of our committees, the question on the minds of the international community swirl around what the role of the international community will be in the newly solidifying global order. The ICJ, UNSC, and UNGA are each discussing issues that will be crucial to establishing what that new order looks like. Will countries bend to the judgments of the International Court of Justice? Will the Security Council be empowered to fulfill its role of keeping international peace? Will the General Assembly work to enhance the power of international organizations?

In ECOSOC, the human costs of a modernizing world and a stabilizing global order are brought to the forefront. Who will provide for the refugees created by global wars? Will free trade be enshrined and defended? What will a new global economy look like for the masses of people increasingly being brought into contact with global markets and trade? None of these questions have simple or straightforward answers.

The British House of Commons confronts the same unstable, confused world as the British cabinet, but with significantly less influence over what happens. As the cabinet remains occupied by dreams of empire from an insular group of Eton graduates, the House of Commons is more in touch with the people, and arguably with reality. The Members of Parliament must attempt to navigate this unstable world, while shackled to a cabinet that may refuse to see the reality in front of them.

Finally, there is the Second Bandung Conference. An ahistorical inclusion, Bandung 2 represents the hope that the non-aligned movement will present a third pole in the global Cold War. In the midst of an incredibly unstable international situation, and with member states frequently at odds both politically and sometimes militarily, the primary question posed by the Bandung 2 conference is whether those differences can be overcome to resist the gravitational pull of the superpowers and their ideological blocs.

In sum, the international situation at the start of our simulation was one of incredible instability. Whether in cabinets or committees, delegates were faced with choices about how to shape the world, and to set precedents that will last for decades. As we transition to discussing the events of our simulation, we see how those decisions played out. Our educational theme this year was “New World Order,” and while we didn’t see the same world order that came into being in the historical 1950s emerge at this conference, we certainly saw delegates make decisions which shaped a new and different world order, with new and different rules.

The international order that emerged from our conference was one much more fractured and bellicose than the historical post-1956 consensus. Both superpowers committed military forces to conflicts abroad directly, and without a crucial shifted vote in the Soviet Cabinet during our midnight crisis, the superpowers would have had direct conflict between their armed forces. Meanwhile, regional military alliances such as the Arab League were vindicated by Pan-Arab victory in the course of the Suez Crisis, potentially encouraging similar, non-aligned blocs to emerge globally.

The themes of divergence between our simulation and the historical record point towards a world order where limited military conflict to achieve political ends is legitimized by the superpowers, and international institutions are undermined by the superpowers’ failure to support them during this crisis. The sheer economic and military might of the superpowers mean that they will certainly remain leading figures of the international community in this more bellicose world, but without them acting as a moderating influence, as they historically did during the Suez Crisis, the world may be more unstable as a whole.

It is also worth considering the way that this bellicosity is at odds with the framework for the use of force established by the United Nations Charter. Under the Charter, countries are only granted leave to use force when approved by the Security Council, or in self-defense. Many of the conflicts we witnessed at this conference failed to employ either pretext, and the result is a severe contradiction between how the superpowers have acted, and the international system they are ostensibly attempting to build.

The self-interested behavior of the United States and the Soviet Union during this conference, combined with the success of the Arab League, will likely reduce the influence of both countries in the third world. The United States’s invasion of the Suez Canal will certainly alienate it from decolonizing nations, which will view the invasion as an imperialist action. On the other hand, the Soviet Union’s decision not to intervene during the invasion of Egypt, though it averted potential escalation towards a world war, may leave the Soviet Union seen as a fickle and self-interested ally to decolonizing powers.

Regarding domestic politics, the Conservative Party in Britain was likely severely discredited by Anthony Eden’s heavy-handed tactics and poor handling of the crisis. However, this is not incredibly dissimilar to the Conservative Party’s historic situation after the Suez Crisis, and it is possible that Prime Minister Harold Macmillan would be able to maintain Conservative governance for years to come while Britain moved past the Suez Crisis.

In the United States, on the other hand, President Eisenhower would not have the luxury of time. The American invasion of the Suez Canal Zone would have been deeply unpopular domestically, and it is very likely that Eisenhower’s electoral performance would suffer compared to his historic landslide victory. It is impossible to say whether the political cost of the Suez Crisis would have pushed Adlai Stevenson to victory, but the election certainly would have been closer than it was historically.

Predicting the future of our simulation is a difficult task. Where we can compare our delegates’ actions to historical events during the course of our simulation, that record becomes increasingly distant from our simulated world as we get further from the start date. The general trends I identify here are one interpretation of how our sim-world would develop, but that interpretation is by no means objective, and it is merely one interpretation. All that can be said for certain is that with our delegates’ actions taken into account, it is highly likely that our sim-world would develop very differently from the historical course of the 20th Century.

Throughout the conference, the actions of the Soviet cabinet demonstrated skepticism and hostility towards the United States, as well as a desire to enhance Soviet power directly rather than to build a stable world system in cooperation with the United States.

In the early portions of the conference, the Soviet Union hesitated to offer support to Egypt, the FLN, or North Vietnam, focusing on internal stability. Historically, the Soviet Union functionally served as a mouthpiece for Nasser at international events such as the first and second London conferences, while our Soviet Union was much more tepid in its support for his nationalization of the Suez Canal.

Eventually, the Soviets signed an agreement with the Egyptians to offer military support, but carefully avoided committing to promising outright military intervention. During our Friday night crisis, as Egypt was facing an invasion from three different powers, the Soviets were faced with a choice between helping their new allies and risking a third World War, or focusing on their domestic situation. By choosing to focus on the Hungarian Revolution as the war in Egypt heated up, the Soviets were able to put down the rebellion without much in the way of international outcry or condemnation, mirroring the way in which the Soviet Union historically used the Suez Canal Crisis rhetorically to de-emphasize the Hungarian Revolution in global political discourse. Historically, by siding with Egypt and pushing for actions such as the UN’s condemnation of the Tripartite Invasion, the Soviet Union was able to emerge from 1956 looking like an ally to the third world and a friend to the “little guy” in geopolitics.

Simultaneously, our Soviet cabinet attempted to disrupt the Western alliance, releasing secret information that they had recovered about an Israeli false flag attack against the United States in an effort to push the U.S. away from its Middle Eastern ally. The Soviet cabinet had access to this information for the majority of our session prior to our Friday night crisis, but chose not to share it except with Egypt. This hesitancy echoes the general hesitance of our Soviet cabinet to reach out to the United States, and highlights the choice on both sides not to be the “adults in the room” with regards to the Suez Canal.

As the Tripartite invasion began, the Soviets contemplated using forces present in their newly acquired base in the Sinai Peninsula to directly reinforce Egypt. This decision went back and forth on a razor’s edge during our Midnight Crisis, with the Soviets ultimately resolving to remain in their base once American forces were on the ground invading Egypt. The Soviet base represented a significant logistical obstacle to Israeli forces, but Egypt was certainly disappointed when its ally failed to bring arms to bear during the invasion. The decision not to fight the Americans directly may have prevented World War III, but it certainly tarnished Soviet image to its potential allies.

Over the rest of the conference, Soviet efforts were geared towards attempting to de-escalate the conflict, while the outbreak of a hot war in Vietnam led them to commit more seriously to helping their North Vietnamese allies against the South. This dovetails with the Soviet cabinet’s decisions to provide material aid to Egypt, as well as to the FLN. Embracing these proxy-conflicts represents a mirror between our simulation and historical Soviet policy. Engaging in proxy conflicts in the third world allowed the Soviet Union to force the United States into choices between maintaining influence via its European allies and their colonial apparatuses, or finding a way to support nationalist groups that were not aligned with communists. One such conflict, which became another testing ground for the international system, was the Congo Crisis between 1960 and 1965.

Historically, the Soviet Union used bellicose rhetoric to threaten the invading powers into withdrawal from Egypt, while it pursued de-escalatory policies in cooperation with the United States, and attempted to reinforce the global system to the advantage of the two superpowers. In Vietnam, Soviet efforts to restrain reignition of the conflict were historically crucial to preserving the peace in Vietnam for several years. In our simulation, a more bellicose policy allowed the conflict to escalate earlier, blunting any efforts by the Soviet government to present themselves to the third world as more altruistic than the West.

The end result of our conference is a Soviet Union with some links to countries outside its immediate orbit, but which will likely fight an uphill battle to expand those ties. At the same time, what connections the USSR has are perhaps more substantial. Rather than mere military aid, our Soviet Union established a permanent military presence in the Sinai Peninsula, potentially foreshadowing a world where proxy wars see much more direct involvement of superpower forces.

Like the Soviet Union, the United States in our simulation was incredibly hesitant to reach out to its fellow superpower to cooperate. Historically, the United States led the charge in the months between August and October, 1956 in attempting to find a diplomatic resolution to the Suez Canal Crisis. This included spearheading the first and second London Conferences, and proposals such as a “Canal Users Association” which aimed to restore international control to the Suez Canal, though without the Anglo-French duopoly. When war broke out in 1956, Eisenhower was apoplectic, calling Prime Minister Anthony Eden to cuss him out, but hanging up the phone before Eden had even arrived. From that point forward, the United States used immense economic leverage, such as vetoing a desperately needed IMF bailout to the British, as well as cooperating with the USSR to promote an end to the Tripartite invasion, to promote a resolution to the Suez Crisis that would ultimately place the canal under Egyptian control.

At our conference, the United States was far more trusting of its treacherous allies, and far less willing to work with the Soviet Union or the international community to prevent or end war in the Suez Canal zone. Throughout Thursday and Friday, the United States had several meetings in various combinations with the United Kingdom, France, and Israel. At some of these meetings, the other parties met prior to work out plans independent from the United States. Despite numerous reassurances that its allies would not invade, and hints that something was amiss with the “Egyptian” attack on a U.S. tanker transiting the Suez, the United States remained steadfast. Without directly coordinating, the United States invaded the Suez Canal during our midnight crisis, reinforcing beleaguered allies who were called away by other concerns.

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the United States hesitated to reinforce the South Vietnamese regime. As news spread of the brutal crackdown instituted by the Diệm government in the South during our Thursday night crisis, including an ICJ finding against South Vietnam, the United States did not immediately provide arms and assistance. This hesitation mirrored a calculus that played out amongst American policy makers throughout the Cold War, attempting to balance the need for anti-communist allies with the geopolitical ramifications of tying American global image to leaders known for their brutality. In our simulation, there was no easy answer to this question, especially once American hesitance led the South Vietnamese government to dig in their heels, rejecting conditions on American aid.

While American hesitance in the face of international outcry was likely an astute move in South Vietnam, the American invasion of Egypt likely undid much of that good work. Historically, the United States was incredibly cognizant of the damage to its own image posed by the Tripartite Invasion in Egypt. Though the United States was completely uninvolved in the attack, three of its closest allies were engaged in an act of blatant imperial conquest, and outcry rang out globally, both in public opinion and diplomatic circles. At our conference, the American decision to join in the invasion did not have time to play out fully, but we can predict that the United States would find itself alienated from many countries throughout the third world, and struggling to get nations to buy into the promises of peace made by the fledgling United Nations.

As the only cabinet at our conference with an associated legislative body, the cabinet of the United Kingdom’s challenges came not just from abroad, but also from within. Historically, the protests outside the House of Commons on November 1, 1956, were the largest protests in the United Kingdom since the end of the Second World War. Even as a small number of protestors, bleeding from wounds inflicted by police officers, found their way into the Palace of Westminster, the Speaker of the House refused to break from the rules of procedure, going through the process of a Vote of No Confidence which Anthony Eden’s government survived by a margin of 69 votes. Nevertheless, his political career was over. Eden resigned in early 1957 in favor of Harold Macmillan, who led a Conservative government until 1962.

In our simulation, things played out significantly differently. While the United Kingdom largely adhered to its historical foreign policy, arranging with France and Israel to invade the Suez Canal behind the back of the United States, the Pan-Arab alliance’s attack on Israel combined with uprisings across French Africa led by allies of the FLN left the United Kingdom as the sole unimpeded member of the invading alliance. Assistance from the United States allowed invading forces to retain control of the Suez Canal, but just as in real life, Egyptian efforts to sink ships in the canal and deny its usage to invading forces meant that the victory in the Canal Zone was pyrrhic. With a battle line drawn right at the Suez, the situation at the end of our Friday night crisis was incredibly tenuous.

The next morning, things got even worse for the British cabinet. In the midst of protests outside the House of Commons, Anthony Eden lost a vote of no confidence by a significant margin. The ensuing political crisis saw the Queen, in a move unprecedented in modern history, intervene to elevate Harold Macmillan at the head of a renewed Conservative government. From then on, the cabinet and the House of Commons had an increasingly hostile relationship, with the cabinet drastically switching tack in an effort to pull out of the unpopular war in the Suez, while the House of Commons focused more on domestic affairs.

Ultimately, our British cabinet and House of Commons followed a similar pattern to their historical counterparts. The war in Egypt was immensely unpopular from the moment it started, and only a strictly regimented Conservative party prevented a vote of no confidence from succeeding in 1956. The arc of our British delegates was to see a cloistered and misguided group at the helm of the country take their aspirations for renewed empire to the extreme, to be rebuffed by the realities of how power operated in a postwar world, and the unpopularity of their actions domestically.

Looking towards the future, it is unlikely that Harold Macmillan’s government will survive for long given the revolt of party members in the House of Commons. Even more so than historically, the United Kingdom will see its international standing tarnished by the misadventure, with countries in the Commonwealth of Nations questioning Britain’s role. Historically, this retreat from global influence eventually ended with British entry into the European Union. The memory of a lost empire also led to Britain’s bellicose policy during the Falklands War, and arguably the eventual withdrawal from the European Union in favor of “Global Britain.” In the future of our simulation, it is hard to predict how these trends will play out. What is likely, however, is that the memory of lost empire will not fade quickly, and the reaction to British defeat will eventually result in attempts to relive faded glory.

Like the United Kingdom, France’s approach to the Suez Crisis and this simulation was fairly historically accurate. Historically, France attempted to hold onto power in Algeria at the expense of a brutal anti-revolutionary war until 1962. Though the French withdrew from Vietnam in 1955, they retained their empire in West Africa, and fought doggedly to keep it. When Nasser seized the Suez Canal, the French government did not just see it as an affront to their national dignity, but as the latest in a line of threats from a leader who was supplying rebels in Algeria, and who threatened to undo decades of work establishing French imperial power.

Where the United Kingdom was historically led by a cloistered elite who genuinely believed that the United Kingdom continued to wield global power, France’s leadership had a much more sober analysis of the situation. They understood the invasion of the Suez Canal as a dirty expedient which would face condemnation, and paid little heed to keeping up the pretense that the invasion was launched in response to Israel’s invasion of the Sinai in order to protect the Suez Canal.

In our simulation, this was mirrored by the attitude of the French cabinet. From the outset, the French cabinet was drawing up plans for conquest and reestablishing their empire globally. From Thursday night, they were attempting to coordinate a military response in the Suez Canal Zone with Israel and the United Kingdom, and doubling down on military policy in Algeria. Ultimately, the course of French policy throughout our conference was to make the best decisions at every point to achieve their goals of renewed global influence and importance, while being met with the cold reality that the world has moved past the age of adventures of conquest and global imperialism.

In Algeria, France faced an escalating war against guerilla revolutionaries. Although our FLN Ad-Hoc cabinet managed to keep their identities largely secret until the end of the day on Friday, France and the FLN were in direct conflict throughout Thursday and Friday. France took actions aimed at suppressing resistance groups, while the FLN organized and prepared various actions to discredit French governance in Algeria, and laid the groundwork to escalate the conflict.

Notably, Friday also saw the International Court of Justice issue a decision that France’s actions in Algeria violated international law. The French cabinet chose to ignore this decision, an action which undermined the power of international institutions. While CIMUN’s rules of procedure allow the United Nations Security Council to act when countries do not comply with ICJ orders, France’s position as a member of the P5 with a veto meant that the Security Council had little realistic power to act against France.

In relation to the Suez Canal, our French cabinet worked closely with the United Kingdom and Israel to plan out the invasion of the Suez Canal, and to mislead the United States about the plan. Already throughout Friday, we began to see a theme of alternating focus. The French cabinet had a tendency to take actions relating to the Suez, then to refocus on Algeria for a period, then to switch back to the Suez. When neither conflict had erupted to its fullest extent, this was sustainable, and allowed the French cabinet to punch above its weight, interfacing with two highly dynamic areas of our simulation, including one where they were unaware that there were delegates working against them in the Ad-Hoc cabinet.

This tempo continued throughout Friday, but was upended when our Friday night crisis broke out. Suddenly, France was confronted with the challenges of the Suez Canal invasion, as well as the unexpected crisis of FLN-associated revolutionary groups breaking into revolt across French West Africa. This forced the cabinet to choose how to commit its resources, and brought home the downsides of trying to maintain two resource-intensive military conflicts at the same time. Ultimately, France could not maintain both conflicts in a state of full scale war forever, and the cabinet eventually reoriented towards trying to resolve one conflict so they could fully win the other.

Historically, France withdrew from its overstretched and unpopular war in Vietnam in 1955, recommitting its forces primarily to maintain its empire in West Africa. Over the rest of the 20th Century, France was arguably the most successful colonial power at maintaining its reduced colonial empire. Though French West Africa broadly gained independence from colonial rule between 1956 and 1960, that “independence” was highly caveated.

One way that these newly independent countries remained linked to France was via the CFA Franc. The CFA Franc is a currency created in 1945 for use in France’s African colonies. The currency is still used in one of two forms by more than two hundred million people in Western and Central Africa. The CFA Franc put monetary policy for these countries in the hands of Paris, and they were required to maintain half of their currency reserves in French banks. This requirement was dropped in 2019, with plans to transition to a new, African-controlled shared currency in the region by 2020. Those plans were put on hold for various reasons, with the current deadline set for 2027. The CFA Franc is just one example of the “neo colonialism” as it came to be called practiced by France after 1956.

In our simulation, delegates faced the reality that de jure colonial rule was deeply unpopular in colonized regions, difficult to maintain militarily, and logistically fraught by 1956. Our delegates entered a difficult situation with the goal of maintaining their empire. In the mental and geopolitical framework of European empires, they made every decision correctly to achieve those goals, and were entirely on policy. The unavoidable obstacle they ran into is that the world order had fundamentally changed. Historically, adopting neo colonial strategies allowed France to salvage regional influence in this new world order, something our delegates did not have time to confront as a potential next step before our conference ended.

One thing the French cabinet did have to consider was the prospect of a peace conference in Algeria. Both sides approached negotiations with irreconcilable red lines, most importantly the refusal of France to acknowledge Algerian independence, and the refusal of the FLN to accept anything less. Though an agreement for a ceasefire was taking shape by the end of our conference, the independence of Algeria was almost certain in the long term. Historically, the Algerian Revolution continued until 1962, and the end of the war led to political unrest within France, including the end of the Fourth Republic. In our simulation, the future of the conflict is difficult to predict, but if negotiations in 1956 did not succeed, a similar timeline for the end of the conflict would likely play out.

In many ways, France is a counterpoint to the United Kingdom. Both countries were on policy at our conference, and thus reflect the divergence that the two countries historically experienced after 1956. The United Kingdom recoiled from its Empire, struggling to find a role in a post-imperial world order. While it remained an important regional power, it has continued to struggle with its role in the new world order. France, on the other hand, adapted its imperial apparatus to the emerging world system, and maintained a greater role in West Africa than the United Kingdom did in regions such as East Africa, Myanmar, and the Middle East.

Almost seventy years later, we still live in the shadow of the world that 1956 created. Given their approach to the various events of our simulation, it seems that our French cabinet is positioned well to follow a similar path to their historical counterparts. Though the war in Algeria is in a worse position, and the revolutionary movements across West Africa present additional challenges, France has several avenues to maintain portions of its imperial apparatus, especially if it can present itself to its superpower ally as a safeguard against communism in West Africa.

Amongst our cabinets, the Israeli cabinet was likely in the most tenuous position at the beginning of our conference. Surrounded by hostile countries, and reliant on aid from its Western allies, Israel in 1956 struggled to balance the developments of an evolving Zionist ideology against the need for aid from the United States that was often conditioned on political considerations.

An illustrative quote from the period comes from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion himself, speaking in 1956:

“Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: they think we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations' time, but for the moment there is no chance. So it's simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out.”

This quote illustrates the strategic and political concerns that confronted Israel around the time that our simulation started. Israeli leaders understood the hostility they faced from Arab states, and understood that hostility as arising from rational beliefs. At the same time, Ben-Gurion gestures towards the ideological underpinnings of Israeli Zionism. The horrors of the Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, in the view of Israeli leaders, necessitated a strong, independent, and unassailable Jewish state. Arab hostility would not fade in the immediate future, so that military self-sufficiency became even more important in the eyes of Israeli leaders.

Thus, our Israeli cabinet was confronted with a need to reinforce its military position, and to achieve that goal, they were going to need to ensure the connection between Israel and its Western allies. This feeling of encirclement and a need for protection was reinforced on Thursday night when the Israeli cabinet was given an update regarding clashes on their Southern border with Palestinian fedayeen, potentially backed by Egypt. Historically, Israel’s justification for invading the Sinai Peninsula in 1956 was to hunt down Egyptian-backed militant groups in the Sinai Peninsula, though it is difficult to distinguish whether this was the motivation felt by Israeli leadership, or a cover story like those employed by the British and French.

On one front, our Israeli cabinet pursued military buildup by coordinating with France and the United Kingdom. Throughout Thursday and Friday, Israel was involved in the effort to plan an invasion of the Suez Canal, and to keep that operation secret from the United States. Israel also took independent, clandestine steps in an attempt to make sure the United States was not swayed by Egyptian overtures, and might even enter into the conflict on the side of the invading forces. During our Friday afternoon session, Israel executed a false flag attack against an American container ship transiting the Suez Canal, attempting to place the blame on Egyptian-backed Fedayeen forces.

In the short run, this strategy worked well, distancing the United States from Egypt, and isolating Egypt from the superpower it had been attempting to work with throughout much of Friday. Unknown to the Israeli cabinet, Soviet operatives recovered proof of this attack and conveyed it to the Soviet cabinet. While the Soviets could have revealed this information to the United States at any time, their hesitance allowed the Israeli operation to spread confusion. Though Egypt immediately invited American investigators to the site of the attack, and began work to clear the now-blocked Suez Canal, the United States remained suspicious, leaving Egypt diplomatically isolated.

By the end of our Friday evening session, Israel and its allies were prepared for a joint invasion of Egypt, but that invasion did not go to plan. Historically, there were several hiccups in the process of the Tripartite Invasion. The plan, in theory, was for Israel to invade the Sinai Peninsula, then for the French and British to issue an ultimatum that they would seize the Suez Canal Zone if Egypt and Israel did not desist from fighting. Israel would refuse to stand down, thus justifying France and Britain to retake the canal. Contemporary commentators and onlookers were not fooled by this ruse, and almost immediately accusations that the entire operation was a false flag were made internationally. Meanwhile, French planes provided air support to Israeli paratroopers before the Franco-British ultimatum was even issued, and some were even painted with the Star of David to mark them as allies to Israeli forces.

In our simulation, the invading powers faced different challenges. At the very end of our Friday evening session, Egypt and the Soviet Union announced the establishment of a Soviet military installation with a wide radius of territory which was legally under Soviet control in the Sinai Peninsula. This forced invading forces to decide between an arduous journey through the Sinai desert, or risking war with a superpower. Meanwhile, Egyptian reinforcement of the Arab League into a strong defensive alliance brought a unified Arab world to bear against Israel, forcing them to reconsider their disposition of forces. The final obstacle that Israel faced at the outset of the invasion was the belated revelation by the Soviet Union that Israel had been behind the sinking of an American vessel in the Suez Canal.

This left Israel in a very difficult position. While American military intervention in the Suez Canal Zone itself made it unlikely that Egyptian forces would counter attack Israel, the rest of the Arab world placed unsustainable pressure on Israel’s military resources. Meanwhile, domestic backlash drove the United Kingdom to pursue an immediate end to its involvement in the conflict, and France similarly chose to refocus on Algeria rather than to reinforce their Middle Eastern ally. The United States, offended by the false flag attack, did not offer military aid to bail out Israel.

The rest of the weekend was a desperate series of attempts to defend Israel against encroaching enemy forces, and to find an ally to reinforce and bail out their beleaguered military. With the West either distracted or aloof, Israel eventually turned to the Soviet Union. Though our conference ended before the exact details of an armistice were finalized and tested by implementation, the deal Israel signed with the Soviet Union marked a monumental shift in the country’s geopolitical alignment. Though the precise details are difficult to pin down due to the agreement being finalized late on Saturday and into Sunday, when our simulation starts to decohere as various cabinets shift into “fun MUN” at a certain point, it included a realignment of Israel as a communist ally in the Middle East, and the establishment of government quotas for proportional representation of Arab and non-Arab citizens in the state.

While this realignment is at odds with the historical course of Israeli geopolitics, it aligns with the pragmatic, preservationist goals as expressed in our framing quote by Ben-Gurion. The scale of this geopolitical realignment once again highlights the degree to which Israel’s geopolitical position was reliant on its role as a Western-aligned ally in the Middle East. Unable to retain support from the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, Israel was faced with an existential threat, and turned to the Soviet Union.

 It is impossible to predict how Israeli foreign policy and alignment would evolve in the future of our simulation’s world. Their East-West realignment could place them either more closely aligned with the Arab World due to Egypt’s cooperation with the Soviet Union, or could see the country viewed as a Soviet puppet in the region. While internal reforms to promote a pluralistic identity could also ease relations, it is equally likely that the Israeli right would react harshly, potentially leading to domestic unrest. Without an opportunity to watch these events play out, the most we can say for certain is that by the end of our simulation Israel had traversed an incredibly fraught path geopolitically, and emerged nearly unrecognizable.

At the start of our simulation, Egypt had just nationalized the Suez Canal, and was entering into a fraught period of diplomatic maneuvering to maintain that control. Though there are numerous factors which led to the decision to seize the canal, two crucial factors were the withdrawal of Western financial support for the Aswan High Dam project, and the Pan-Arabist, anti-imperialist ideological convictions of Colonel Nasser and the leaders of Egypt’s republican revolution. Our simulation, particularly with the inclusion of the Second Bandung Conference, was designed to emphasize the anti-imperialist ideologies that were seeking a path between the superpowers during this period, which was a theme that our Egyptian cabinet latched onto and promoted throughout the conference.

On Friday, Egypt hosted a meeting of the Arab League, bringing various head delegates together with the Egyptian cabinet, and securing renewed commitments to defense agreements. Though our Egyptian cabinet still reached out to the United States and Soviet Union to pursue diplomatic avenues to resolve the Suez Crisis. These efforts received initially frosty reception, which reinforced the cabinet’s commitment to their pan-Arabist aspirations. Throughout Friday, Egypt worked to reinforce its Arab military alliances, including with the FLN. While Egypt and the FLN were historically aligned during this period, our FLN cabinet was incredibly wary of becoming an Egyptian puppet, and resisted Egypt’s request to join as full members of the Arab League’s military alliance, citing their continued war for independence. Eventually, the FLN joined with Egypt militarily, but the realities of the FLN’s guerilla war against France limited the FLN’s ability to assist Egypt.

When a false flag attack was executed against an American ship, Egypt quickly moved to admit American investigators. Egypt received limited indications from the Soviet Union that Israel was behind the attack, but the result of this episode on Friday night was mostly to disrupt Egyptian-American relations. Without the United States as a potential benefactor, Egypt moved towards the Soviet Union, eventually signing a crucial treaty which placed Soviet forces on the ground in the Sinai Peninsula to disrupt an avenue of potential invasion. Announced minutes before the end of our Friday evening session, this alliance may have come too late to completely cut off the Tripartite Invasion, but it put new pieces on the board which shifted the field in Egypt’s favor.

During our Friday night crisis, Egypt reacted to the Tripartite Invasion. Some elements of Egypt’s response mirrored the historical trajectory of the conflict. Pushed back in the Sinai, Egypt used guerilla forces to harass Israeli supply lines. A major departure from the historical course of events was the intervention of the rest of the Arab League on Egypt’s side, drawing the alliance closer together and drastically undermining the Israeli element of the invasion force.

As the invasion continued, Egypt took the historically accurate step of sinking ships to deny invading forces use of the canal. At this point, the Suez Canal became the contested line of battle between Egypt, the Tripartite forces, and the unexpected direct military intervention of the United States of America. With significant military aid from the Soviet Union, Egypt was able to bring the invasion to a standstill along this line. Damage to the canal, including from American efforts to mine the canal, left the canal in a state that would take months, if not years, to fully repair. Simultaneously, concerted guerilla efforts in Port Said turned the battle for the city into a bloody quagmire which drained the military resources of the invading powers.

The rest of the conference involved Egypt attempting to undermine the standing of the invading powers, and to re-emphasize that the Suez Canal would not be returned to its former owners. President Nasser gave a speech to protestors outside the House of Commons, helping to urge on the domestic instability which encouraged the United Kingdom to pull back from the war. Diplomatically, Egypt continued efforts to support and escalate the war in Algeria, making France’s deployment in the Suez Canal more untenable. Meanwhile, negotiations were opened with the United States with an eye towards ending the American military presence in the canal zone and re-establishing free trade.

Historically, the Suez Canal crisis was ended largely by diplomatic maneuvering on the international stage by Egypt, and efforts to bring both the United States and the Soviet Union to their side. The invasion was condemned at the United Nations, and the invasion itself made opposition to Egypt’s nationalization of the canal untenable. Under different circumstances, Egypt’s nationalization likely would not have been accomplished nearly as successfully as it was historically. In our simulation, the intervention of the United States shows one such differing outcome.

American intervention forced Egypt to work more closely with the Soviet Union, and also delayed an end to the conflict. Without both superpowers sitting down to encourage a peaceful resolution, we did not reach an absolute resolution of the crisis by the end of our conference, though it is highly unlikely that Egypt would not emerge with control and ownership of the canal in the long run. As for pan-Arabism, our Egyptian cabinet made various moves to encourage a vision for a unified Arab world, and the Middle Eastern war likely drew the countries into even closer alignment. While it is impossible to say with certainty what the outcome of these efforts would be, it seems likely that a more expansive and integrated League of Arab States would develop, perhaps with more countries joining the United Arab Republic when it was formally declared.

More than any other country in our simulation, Egypt’s actions reshaped the world system that evolved from our 1956 simulation. By reinforcing the Non-Aligned Movement and ideological pan-Arabism, Egypt credibly worked to present a third pole in the geopolitical maneuvering of the Cold War. If our simulation had continued and those aspirations were further actualized, we would likely see Egypt emerge as one of the major leaders of an anti-imperialist, pro-nationalist group that promoted decolonization, and resisted siding with the superpowers.

This potential third pole in the global Cold War also underscores the way in which the superpowers were weakened by the course of our simulation. Because the superpowers did not reinforce global institutions, headed by themselves, as the avenue to resolve disputes such as the Suez Crisis, the world of our simulation is likely to be more multipolar. Egypt’s victory in this crisis likely creates a stronger Egypt in the long run, but that strength comes at the expense of the superpowers, and may mean a less stable world. If Egypt, India, China, and perhaps others rise as regional powers that meaningfully contest the hegemony of the superpowers, it is unlikely that the world that follows our simulation will avoid direct conflicts between major powers as historically happened throughout the latter half of the 20th Century.

South Vietnam entered our simulation in an incredibly unstable position. Though the Geneva Accords brought the First Indochina War to an end in 1954, Ngô Đình Diệm’s government did not accept all of the provisions of the accords, and the Southern government faced several forms of unrest and instability domestically. This combined with the personalist regime established by Diệm, including giving important positions to his close relatives, to make South Vietnam’s newly established constitutional regime one that was very reliant on external aid.

Historically, 1956 was a relatively quiet year in terms of outright conflict in the Vietnam War, but it was also a year that highlighted the undeniable Cold War dynamics of the developing conflict. Anti-communism was used by the government in the South to justify non-participation in the national elections established under the Geneva Accords, and to justify the Diệm regime’s crackdown on rural rebels. In October, the government outlawed communism entirely, while also instituting land reforms that attempted (and failed) to reduce the social division which fostered communist sentiments in rural communities. Critically, 1956 was a year of transition between French intervention in the South, and incoming American support for an anti-communist government.

In our simulation, similar patterns emerged. The outbreak of rural revolts in South Vietnam during our Thursday night crisis led to harsh crackdowns by the South Vietnamese cabinet, and threatened to escalate into a resumption of war between North and South Vietnam. The harsh, even brutal methods employed by the cabinet echo similar methods used by the South Vietnamese government historically, and also presented the central question that the cabinet would grapple with for the rest of the conference: how would the Diệm regime maintain internal stability without risking the support of its crucial American allies. This was not an easy question to answer, and our delegates faced a realistic struggle in attempting to balance their national interests with the demands of their superpower benefactor.

With the United States put off from supporting South Vietnam due to the cabinet’s methods of suppressing rural uprisings, things continued to get worse for the cabinet. The International Court of Justice took up a case concerning South Vietnam, and found against the government. However, like France, South Vietnam ignored this ruling, relying on allies on the Security Council to prevent enforcement of the ICJ’s orders. This strategy worked, but it isolated South Vietnam from the international community, and undermined the legitimacy of international institutions.

Throughout Friday, the primary struggle for South Vietnam was to seek out foreign aid, especially with American aid reduced and hesitant. Repeated difficulties in this arena reinforce the fact that the international community reacted poorly to the harsh measures taken by the cabinet. Historically, support for harsh regimes was often garnered by emphasizing domino theory and anti-communist rhetoric, a strategy that worked to ensure American support for various governments globally that faced allegations of human rights abuses, but which presented themselves as the only credible defense against communism.

Historically, another element of this diplomacy was the United States using its immense leverage to extract political concessions from allies that relied on American military aid. In South Vietnam in particular, Ngô Đình Diệm faced repeated pressure from the United States to enact reforms, remove his unpopular brother Ngô Đình Nhu from authority, and cease hostile policies towards Buddhists in the country. Diệm’s refusal prompted the United States to tacitly support a military coup that deposed him in 1963, ending his rule.

In our simulation, the United States attempted to pressure South Vietnam in a similar manner, but their hesitancy to aid South Vietnam following the Thursday night crisis combined with Diệm’s historical unwillingness to compromise with American demands, meant that these efforts had little impact.

Throughout Saturday, while dealing with domestic issues surrounding the South Vietnamese government’s relationship to organized crime, South Vietnam attempted to regain American support by instigating conflict with North Vietnam. At the same time, North Vietnam was attempting to garner support from the Soviet Union by instigating conflict with South Vietnam. In the backroom, we watched each cabinet simultaneously and independently develop plans to use false flag attacks to make it look like the other had attacked them. These plans were each executed, setting off a renewed phase of armed conflict in Vietnam. To some extent, these dual efforts to use false attacks to escalate the conflict presage the historical Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Though the Gulf of Tonkin Incident is murkier, and it is debated how much it was a result of misunderstanding as opposed to intentional exaggeration of a non-existent attack, the end result was that American involvement in the Vietnam War vastly escalated in response to an attack that never happened.

For our South Vietnamese cabinet, the renewed conflict following the dual false flag attacks did not lead to increased Western military commitments. Over the rest of the weekend, South Vietnam used limited resources to confront their more well-armed Northern opponents, who had Soviet backing. While the conflict did not resolve by the end of our conference, it is likely that North Vietnam would have eventually won the war absent significantly increased American intervention. As history shows, even American intervention likely would not have done more than prolong the conflict.

Historically, the Vietnam war was prolonged for decades by American intervention on the side of the South. The human costs of American intervention were not limited to Vietnam, and included people in Laos and Cambodia, with the impacts of the war being felt into the present day. In our simulation, the American decision to commit troops to invade Egypt likely limited both political and logistical capacity to drastically escalate involvement in Vietnam, and the fate of South Vietnam after our simulation is difficult to predict.

Thematically, South Vietnam showed a more traditional Cold War narrative. Whereas the historical Suez Canal Crisis showed superpower cooperation, Vietnam is one of the most archetypical examples of a proxy war fought between the superpowers. In our simulation, the American recoiling after the Thursday night crisis left a country split due to Cold War ideologies, and that division led to a bloody war of reunification regardless of whether the United States ultimately recommitted itself to supporting South Vietnam. In terms of outcome, this underscores the callousness that the superpowers could exhibit towards allies involved in proxy conflicts. Even without continued American intervention, the divisions created by their ideological influence were crucial to the exacerbation of the Vietnam War in our simulation.

The course of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s conference mirrored historical debates and controversies that the North Vietnamese government went through during and around 1956. Historically, North Vietnam completed its program of land reform in 1956, and reversed a number of persecutions of supposed landlords as excessive in the late months of the year. North Vietnam’s domestic situation was not defined by instability in the same way South Vietnam’s was, but the North had very little industrial development, and relied heavily on aid from the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China militarily. As the country looked towards the goal of national reunification, Chinese and Soviet influence encouraged North Vietnam to refrain from reigniting the military conflict for several years.

In our Thursday night crisis, North Vietnam was faced with a choice between reinforcing sympathetic groups that rose up in the South, or abandoning them in the name of preserving the status quo and buying time to prepare. Our delegates chose a middle ground, providing clandestine aid to the rebels. They continued this theme throughout Friday, beginning work on strategies reminiscent of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and otherwise attempting to prepare for covert conflict while they built up their military capabilities.

Diplomatically, North Vietnam, like South Vietnam, turned to their superpower ally to request aid. Where the Americans were cold towards South Vietnam due to international image, the Soviet Union demanded that North Vietnam provide evidence that they were effectively using Soviet aid before more would be provided. This led our North Vietnamese cabinet into their plan for a false flag attack, which they developed and executed nearly simultaneously to the false flag attack plan developed by their counterparts in South Vietnam.

As mentioned above, these false flag attacks both echo the historical role of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in escalating American involvement in the Vietnam War. Historically, by some combination of people intentionally exaggerating events, and being confused about what happened in the incident, a non-existent attack was used to escalate American involvement in the Vietnam War. The false flag attacks executed by each of our Vietnam cabinets were more directly aimed at subterfuge and misdirection, but they served a similar end goal. Each cabinet wanted to use the appearance of these attacks to convince their superpower benefactor to become more involved in the conflict.

Though North Vietnam did not manage to get an immediate response on the scale our cabinet may have hoped for, the end result of their diplomatic maneuvering with the Soviet Union was more fruitful than South Vietnam’s dealings with the United States. On Saturday, a formal Vietnamese-Soviet Treaty was signed, an alliance with economic components, including infrastructure investments (something our North Vietnamese cabinet was deeply concerned with throughout the weekend), industrial and radio investments, and the transportation of Soviet garrison forces to ensure North Vietnam’s territorial integrity. The agreement also allowed the Soviet Union to station its Pacific Fleet in Vietnam, and provided modern Soviet tanks and firearms to supply the North Vietnamese army.

It is uncertain how this direct Soviet assistance would impact the conflict past the end of our simulation. Without a mirror escalation on the part of the United States, the Soviet Union and North Vietnam together would be very likely to win out in the Vietnam War. However, the more direct presence of the Soviet Union, especially if it came with a degree of Soviet political control, may reduce popular support for the North Vietnamese government. These kind of effects are difficult to simulate or predict, but given the general degree of support North Vietnam’s government enjoyed at the time, it is likely that Soviet support would lead to victory in the Vietnam War, but might have implications for Vietnam’s ability to develop policy independent of Soviet influence afterwards. The balance between reliance on outside aid and the desire to maintain freedom in policy making was one of the central questions we asked our Vietnamese cabinets to consider, and it is uncertain how much of that freedom North Vietnam was able to salvage in the end.

Historically, 1956 marked two years since the outbreak of the Algerian War of Independence. In the midst of the Suez Crisis, the FLN continued its fight against French forces in Algeria, launching the Battle of Algiers, and working to bring disparate ideological factions together in the name of independence. Late 1956 saw Ahmed Ben Bella arrested in a French operation that hijacked the airplane he was travelling on. The year was crucial to the developing ideological and political disposition of the Algerian independence movement.

In our simulation, the first decision that faced our Ad-Hoc delegates was when and how to reveal themselves to the rest of our conference. Historically, independence guerilla movements often had to choose between remaining underground and using anonymity and secrecy to aid their efforts, or publicly announcing their intentions for the international profile and domestic support that might follow. This dynamic was replicated at our conference. Delegates understand that a cabinet of fellow delegates will have eight people working throughout the weekend to promote their national interests, while groups without cabinets are limited to the split attention of a head delegate, and responses organized by the Home Government staff.

As an example of how this dynamic presented our FLN cabinet with a challenge, consider their interactions with the French Cabinet throughout Thursday and Friday, when the FLN cabinet’s existence was almost entirely secret. As early as Thursday night, the French Cabinet was taking actions regarding the war in Algeria, but those actions were not given the same level of time and attention as the Suez Crisis, which had several other cabinets interacting. For our FLN delegates, this provided an opportunity to react to French actions which were not made with the expectation of delegates on the receiving end, and to plan around how to capitalize on the element of surprise.

Throughout Friday, the FLN chose to keep their identities secret. At the same time, they had limited interactions with Egypt and the Arab League, attempting to navigate demands made by an important strategic and material benefactor, while avoiding becoming an ancillary component of Nasser’s agenda. As these negotiations circled around what commitments the FLN would have to make and when, our FLN cabinet was concerned by the possibility of being bound to provide military aid to Egypt while struggling to win their national independence.

The concern here, that the FLN might be drawn into conflicts that did not concern its immediate situation due to broader alliance, mirrors problems various countries confronted during the Cold War. The North Atlantic Treaty has specific geographic limits on what types of conflicts would require a response from the organization, and throughout the Cold War there were movements in member states arguing that NATO would embroil countries in superpower conflicts that did not concern them. Globally there were many countries that struggled to weigh the benefits of collective defense against the costs of aligning with a country that might not share their specific interests and situation.

Our FLN cabinet took a unique approach to this dilemma, deciding to balance its work with pan-Arabists in Egypt and the Arab League with outreach to groups in French-colonized Africa who would share in the FLN’s specific strategic situation with regards to France. Throughout Friday, the FLN worked to coordinate mass-uprisings against French colonial governance in Africa, speaking to representatives of anti-imperialist groups in various nations in the region. This culminated near the end of our Friday evening session with the FLN giving a press conference at which they publicly announced their presence as a cabinet, and the beginning of these coordinated uprisings.

Ending the session on this note, our FLN cabinet arrived at our Friday night crisis to find their Head of Government and moderator missing, and a phone ringing. After several calls went unanswered, the delegates picked up, only to discover that their Head of Government, Ahmed Ben Bella, was on the other end. Ben Bella had been captured by the French Cabinet making efforts to hijack a plane, and was being held in a prison in Algiers. Our delegates were given a time limit to develop and approve a plan to free Ben Bella. As previously mentioned, Ben Bella’s capture was something that happened historically in October 1956, when all of our Friday night crisis events took place. However, Ben Bella historically remained in prison until 1962.

This midnight crisis emphasized several challenges that guerilla organizations of this period had to contend with. While our FLN cabinet worked together mostly amicably, the historical FLN was riven by factional divisions, and leadership of the group was anything but unified and certain. The capture of a unifying figure such as Ben Bella, when they could not be freed quickly, would often lead to power struggles, and even splits in organizations. Our delegates avoided this outcome, but the arrest of Ben Bella also highlights the way that non-state actors are treated differently in international affairs. Even today there are heads of state or government who have standing arrest warrants, but moving to enforce those warrants, especially by hijacking a plane, would be a gross breach of international norms. Ben Bella’s status as the leader of a scarcely-recognized group allowed the French cabinet to take actions against him that would have led to far more severe repercussions if dealing with a fully recognized member of the international community.

Our Algerian cabinet succeeded in rescuing Ben Bella, and spent much of Saturday playing on France’s split attention and overstretched military forces to push for recognition of Algerian independence. The FLN had coordinated with the head delegate of Tunisia to enable a false flag attack which Algeria then used to invoke the Arab League’s mutual defense agreement and involve other countries in the Algerian War of Independence. At this point, France was already embroiled in a war with the Arab League due to the Suez Crisis, and the widespread uprisings associated with the FLN’s operations in West Africa.

At this point, our Algerian cabinet encountered a challenge that decolonial movements encountered repeatedly in history: though it was obvious by this point that France would not be able to retain control over Algeria in the long run, the French government was unwilling to consider granting Algeria its independence outright. This led to a tense series of negotiations, which were ultimately inconclusive. The reality that Algeria would win its independence was almost certain by the end of our conference, but the political recognition of that fact had yet to develop in France. Historically, the Algerian War of Independence did not end until 1962, years after France had granted de jure independence to many of its African colonial subjects.

The French government and many French citizens viewed Algeria as an integral part of metropolitan France in this period. As the Algerian War of Independence moved towards its conclusion historically, the political instability this engendered led to the fall of the French Fourth Republic, the rise of Charles de Gaulle, and the institution of the French Fifth Republic which is still the constitutional regime operating in France today.

For our Algerian cabinet, this meant that the political realities surrounding Algerian independence already existed by the end of our simulation, but were unlikely to be recognized for years to come. Because our Algerian cabinet earned some international recognition during our simulation, it is likely that their formal independence would come sooner than Algeria’s historical independence, but this is not certain.

Even less certain is the fate of the FLN’s fellow revolutionaries throughout French colonies in West Africa. With the Sahara Desert functioning as a severe logistical obstacle, and the FLN itself having limited material aid to offer, it is likely that France, once it resolved its role in the Suez Canal Crisis, would be able to reallocate resources to suppress these revolutionary movements. The outcome of this process is entirely unpredictable given how far our cabinets diverged from the historical course of events. The most likely outcome is probably that the French government would eventually develop systems of indirect control and de jure independence for these colonized nations as it did historically, though the fresh memory of colonial crackdowns would certainly complicate these relationships.

Overall, our FLN Ad-Hoc Cabinet represented the important role of non-state actors in the conflicts of this period, and the complex geopolitical questions that confronted these actors. Attempting to establish an independent nation while not being recognized and afforded the rights of a nation created complex and unique problems. France was able to completely block a recommendation for Algeria to be admitted to the UN at the Security Council, denying our FLN cabinet the formal path to recognition entirely. In this context, our delegates were forced to pursue unconventional solutions, and to rely on the material and tactical advantages they had rather than on formal diplomatic procedure in pursuing their agendas.

Marmalade was a secretive and experimental inclusion in this year’s CIMUN conference. Advisors of Marmalade delegates received only cryptic and vague communications prior to the beginning of the conference explaining that their delegates would receive a special role during our opening ceremony. Delegates themselves were not informed that they had a secret role until they were pulled out, placed with their KGB handler, and had their role explained. Even amongst conference staff, Marmalade was a codeword that was known only to those directly involved in planning and executing the experience.

The nature of clandestine work during the Cold War is that short of a few tell-all memoires, such as Oleg Kalugin’s “Spymaster,” successful intelligence operations are little-known (if known at all), and shrouded in secrecy. At the same time, clandestine operations were a very real and undeniably important part of both the real and imagined conflict of the Cold War. In 1950, vague and unsubstantiated claims of “207 known communists” in the State Department catapulted Senator Joseph McCarthy to national prominence, and created a Red Scare. In South Vietnam, General Phạm Ngọc Thảo operated as a North Vietnamese sleeper agent, and his efforts at sabotage were incredibly impactful in undermining several successive governments in South Vietnam. The 1953 coup against Mohammed Mosadegh in Iran, spearheaded by British and American intelligence, created an autocratic Shahdom which lasted until 1979. Globally, both the fear and reality of covert operations had a major impact on policy and world events, and that was something we wanted to bring to life at our conference.

Our five cabinets with Marmalade operatives were France, Israel, Egypt, South Vietnam, and the FLN. Throughout the weekend, our delegates had to balance increasingly suspicious orders from Moscow against both their genuine loyalty to the best interests of their country, and the fear of being found out and executed. Even the Soviet cabinet was not aware of these assets until mid-day on Saturday, and delegates were forced to contend with questions of how to utilize clandestine intelligence without revealing the presence of assets, or else how to help such assets escape.

In the end, only one of our Marmalade delegates was found out in the course of our normal, non-fun MUN simulation. This happened in the French cabinet, and was due to generalized paranoia within the cabinet as a whole. Speaking from my position in the backroom, I think the paranoia and intrigue generated by Marmalade delegates highlighted the uncertainty many felt trying to navigate the global Cold War.

A moment that stands out to me was when the CIMUN Chronicle felt the need to publish an article identifying the number and identities of its reporters. This came after rumors that there was a delegate pretending to be with the IPD. I do not know whether the alleged fake CIMUN Chronicle delegate was one of our Marmalade delegates using a cover story, or whether they existed at all. This kind of paranoia is something that often arises at a Model United Nations conference. Subterfuge and trickery are powerful tools regardless of one’s official position.

With Marmalade, we wanted to take these fears, which delegates often develop irrationally, and make them real. Subterfuge and covert operations are a part of global geopolitics, and at CIMUN, we want to ensure delegates are never certain what will happen next.

Led by Tiberius “Tab” Lloyd, 2nd viscount Worthington, the CIMUN Chronicle at this year’s conference was CIMUN’s second foray into operating our press delegation as a unified cabinet-style body. Throughout the weekend, our press delegates were encouraged to pursue an editorial line reminiscent of the type of pro-invasion jingoistic rhetoric put out by sources such as the Daily Mail in 1956. This editorial line led to notable publications condemning Nasser and pushing for a strong response from the British cabinet, but also left ample time for our press delegates to keep the world informed of the various other events occurring within the simulation.

Historically, the Daily Mail’s coverage of the Suez Crisis urged military intervention from the outset, criticized those who sought diplomatic solutions, and used harsh language to condemn Nasser and his actions. We saw this reflected in pieces from CIMUN Chronicle's editorial board, which attacked Nasser, and promoted the British government when it acted strongly against him. Over the course of the weekend as British popular opinion turned against Eden, and then Macmillan, the editorial board was harsher towards the Conservative government.

More generally, the CIMUN Chronicle served as one of the most dynamic looks into the ongoing events of our simulation. At times, it can be easy for delegates in our simulations to lose sight of the broader context in which they are operating. This year, the CIMUN Chronicle did an excellent job of keeping those events at the forefront, and helped to place pressure on our British cabinet. An important element of this pressure, which mirrored historical events, was that the strong response demanded by the CIMUN Chronicle was not realistic in geopolitical terms. While the CIMUN Chronicle’s impulses aligned with the personal preferences of our United Kingdom cabinet delegates, the push for a military response was part of what pushed the United Kingdom into an untenable invasion which led to serious geopolitical blowback, and domestic political collapse.

Both in its interplay with the British cabinet, and in its broader engagement with the simulation as a whole, the CIMUN Chronicle played a major role in keeping our delegates informed and connected across our massive simulation. Projecting into the future of our simulation world, we can predict that the CIMUN Chronicle would likely follow a trajectory similar to the right wing tabloids that supported the invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956. That history is too complex to delve into exhaustively here, but suffice it to say that in 1972, these tabloids were at the forefront championing the British war effort during the Falklands War, and they continued to shape public opinion through Brexit, and to the present.

While cabinets often get the flashier stories, Model United Nations is fundamentally rooted in modeling the way that the world’s many countries come together via international institutions. Historically, 1956 was a year that saw the international community firmly establish several norms, institutions, and ways of resolving conflicts. The United Nations deployed its first peacekeeping mission to separate Egyptian and Israeli troops in the Suez Canal Zone. The IMF provided bailouts to countries on both sides of the conflict, and withholding an IMF bailout was key to American pressure towards the United Kingdom. The General Assembly condemned the invasion and its transgressions of the United Nations charter, while the international news media decried the invasion in more emotive terms.

Our educational theme this year was New World Order, and the international community, more than anything, embodies the “what” of that order. Institutions like the IMF, United Nations, and ICJ formed (and continue to form) the backbone of the so-called “rules-based international order” that 1956 helped to entrench. At this conference, however, we saw a very different order emerge. While the ICJ asserted itself, issuing findings against several countries for violations of international law, the United Nations Security Council did not act to enforce those findings, and our cabinets universally ignored them. Rather than France and South Vietnam being turned into international pariahs for this, each continued to work (with more or less success) with the United States, one of the chief architects of the post-war international order.

At the same time, the international community saw some successes. The Plenary Session of the United Nations General Assembly convened, and successfully admitted several new members to the organization. ECOSOC and the Second Bandung Conference both successfully addressed their topics of concern, and reinforced international cooperation at a time when many of our national cabinets were not doing so. Broadly, international organizations did not emerge from our conference as strong as they did in 1956 historically.

Delegates reflecting on this might ask who is to blame for this divergence. An answer to this question might be found in the fundamental nature of how these bodies function. Taking the United Nations Security Council as an example, the absolute veto of the P5 members renders action that severely hampers those countries’ interests difficult, if not impossible. Prior to 1956, the most noteworthy intervention of the United Nations was its intervention in the Korean War on behalf of South Korea. This partisan action was only possible because the Soviet Union was boycotting the United Nations over its continued recognition of the Republic of China as the legitimate government of mainland China after the end of the Chinese Civil War.

Historically, the deployment of United Nations Peacekeepers to the Suez Canal Zone in 1956 came only after mass condemnation and independent actions by each of the superpowers had made it clear that the Tripartite Invasion was not going to succeed. Had France or the United Kingdom wanted to, they could have vetoed the Security Council’s decision to deploy these peacekeepers. At our conference, with the United States effectively supporting the invasion, there was little or no chance that such a solution would be reached.

A similar story plays out with regards to the International Court of Justice Both South Vietnam and France could reliably assume that their interests would not be abandoned at the United Nations Security Council, and thus there was almost no incentive to obey the ICJ’s decisions. These patterns highlight the difference between the idealized function of institutions, and the pragmatic decisions that national leaders make when national interest is on the line.

Long term thinking likely would have seen our superpower cabinets reinforce international institutions for pragmatic reasons. These institutions give them power, and even if vetoes limit the Security Council’s ability to advance individual agendas, they also mean that the superpowers themselves can tactically decide to ignore international institutions periodically to pursue their goals, something that very few other countries have the same ability to get away with. This is one explanation for why the superpowers historically reinforced international institutions in 1956, but is not necessarily correct, nor the only possible explanation.

Regardless, at our conference, the superpowers and our other cabinets almost uniformly undermined international institutions in various ways, leaving behind a world where the international community is a far less coherent, far less influential concept. It is impossible to predict whether this trend would continue, or if the superpowers would change course in order to reinforce their power. If they maintain the course they established at our conference, the international community’s role in the emerging world order would be substantially reduced as compared to its role in history.

As CIMUN XXII and 1956 fade into the past, I hope you are all excited for CIMUN XXIII and 1989. As 1956 marked a crucial turning point at the start of the Cold War, 1989 marks a crucial turning at the end of the Cold War. In 1956, the United States and Soviet Union came together to force a New World Order into being. They broke the power of the old empires, and put themselves at the center of a world divided between two visions. Over time, the Non-Aligned Movement faded into the background, as the generation of visionary leaders that founded it died and were replaced by successors who tended to side pragmatically with the superpowers.

By 1989, that order is fading, and the world looks nervously towards an uncertain future. The Soviet Union’s empire has not yet collapsed, but every day it shifts closer to oblivion. Four years of reforms under Gorbachev have failed to revitalize the Soviet project, and the world must ask what will come next. In the United States, the victor sits uneasy with what victory will entail. The Soviet Union may be an enemy, but it is an enemy which has kept Eastern Europe and Russia stable. With its collapse, Eastern Europe would be unpredictable, perhaps even dangerous.

Across the world, countries which have shaped their policy for decades around the calculus of the Cold War must confront its seeming end. There are only three questions that remain.

Will the West have the power to crush communism once and for all?

Will the East be able to salvage the last embers of the Soviet dream?

And to everyone, East, West, or otherwise: what will the shape of the world be as we approach the turn of the Millenium?