United Nations faction review feature - Red March

"Peace through strength."

- Buckminster Fuller.

The United Nations is one of the main factions of Red March. The UN will go to any means to protect themselves in critical situations, in particular, the European component of the alliance. In the campaign during the approach of Soviet Troops to the Alps and their break through of the Maginot Line, the EuroCorps begins to use last ditch weaponry, for example, chemical and neutron weapons, even on its' own territory. The UN is not a faction with clean hands, they are led by harsh militarists and are resolutely ready for anything.

At a glance
Playing Style: Hit and Run, precision strikes.
Preferred Theatre of Operations: Aerial warfare.
Strengths: Air superiority, mobility, rapid expansion, good transport possibilities and map control, excellent camouflage and defence.
Weaknesses: High prices, few heavily armed units, fragile and unreliable experimental units.
Intended Players: Fans of the classic Command & Conquer games.

Gameplay features
UN advantages lie in very strong and accurate weapons. The strongest part of the UN forces are infantry and aviation. Infantry has access to more powerful weapons than used by other factions, but this is offset by weaker armour. Armored infantry and support usually destroys dangerous targets from afar, or approaches foes from the flank and in the rear, as well as using hit and run tactics, while UN aviation is well suited for holding the skies and smashing foes with impunity. Base-building for the UN will largely be the same as in the classic C&C games up to Red Alert 2 inclusive, and UN forces will use something similar to the MCV from C&C series.

History

Origin
After the victory over Nazi Germany, the confrontation between USSR and western capitalist countries escalated again, and the Fulton speech by Churchill and Truman demonstrated an attitude towards the USSR that broke the last hopes for peaceful coexistence of the two political poles. In a repetition of what happened after WWI, the western world embraced anti-communist hysteria, and all the successes of the Roosevelt policy of good relations with the Soviet Union crumbled. In 1949, an attempt was made to form a military-political organization that would unite the western allies into an anti-communist bloc. But this idea was transformed into a program for the creation of a supranational superstate like the USSR with a single trading space, a common set of laws, standardized military equipment and an attempt to create a unified armed forces.

Foundation
The United Nations was founded in April 4, 1949. Originally Prime Minister Winston Churchill planned to create a military-political bloc called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from western anti-nazi and anti-soviet countries, but after lengthy consultation and analysis of the soviet threat, the leadership of the founders of the future bloc decided to create a roadmap for the global integration of their countries into one supranational super-state (a multinational confederation or federation). For such an ambitious project, a different name was required, and in the end this union was called the United Nations.

Atlas Shrugged
With the UN's foundation with a common border and a common trade zone, mafias in Europe and America also merged. European and American corporations, during bloody, invisible wars, merged into syndicates that began to fill a variety of industries and even take control of entire countries.

Big business and corporations continue to have close ties with politicians and the mafia. Now this triad is promoting their own interests in UN policy, forcing the UN to intervene in local conflicts around the world, forcing favorable contracts and even demonstrating outright aggression in small countries (Victory in the Vietnam War, for example, will allow the receiving of massive contracts for production and access to large reserves of resources in Vietnam). The Military-industrial complex is constantly receiving new orders for more hi-tech weapons, the arms race and development of new technology escalates, and there is always an opportunity to earn huge amounts of money for venture capitalists.

Industry therefore grows at an incredible pace, with continual opening of new branches, and it demands more resources that are desperately lacking. To provide guaranteed consumption, many corporations are using private military companies (or even just mercenaries) to participate in civil wars in the third world in exchange for access and the development of local resources on favorable terms. After a syndicate emerges victorious, the state is first subordinated to the UN and it's syndicates with capital, before being politically strong armed into the Union.

Despite the appearance of being a beneficial supra-national government, far beyond the reach of average citizens, money and cynicism rule the United Nations.

Secret government
Despite national governments declarations to the contrary, the UN is effectively controlled by several groups that make up the secret government. The Gray cardinals, the Patriots and the Committee, for example, grew out of the mafia, various corporations and even old political clans. This conglomerate consists of both secretly and openly influential people, public figures, politicians and businessmen. But even above them rises the mysterious Inner Circle, who are known of only through conflicting conspiracy theories. Some marginal claims are that the Inner Circle has ancient roots, while still others claim that it has its' origin in the 19th century. Which of these is true is unknown.

Whichever is true, this underground organisation controls nearly half of the human world and uses the structure of UN for their own purposes...

Future
The United Nations remains a fragile union. This association exists only as long as there is the threat of the Soviet Union. In addition, the relationship between the core countries remains sufficiently strained, due to conflicted interests and the trappings of the UN.

Meanwhile, oblivious to the doings of the powers that be, the average people of the UN continue on their lives as all people do, and vote for leaders who are either powerless in the face of the UN, or whom acquiesce to it's strength. As such, though led by the self concerned and wealthy, the UN is not inherently evil, it is still a collection of individuals with noble aims, such as the spread of democracy, representation of nationalities, eradication of disease and poverty across the world, whose conflict has resulted in a nightmarish super-power almost as much at war with itself as with it's foes.

Behind the scenes
U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first proposed the use of the term "United Nations" in order to refer to the Allies during World War II as an alternative to another title - "United Power". The source of this idea was Winston Churchill, who quoted in correspondence with Roosevelt the poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", where the phrase "United Nations" referred to the Allies present at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The first official use of the term occurred on 1st January 1942 in the Declaration of the United Nations. During the later stages of World War II the Allies used the term "United Nations" to refer to the Anti-Hitler Coalition.

The terms "Allies" and “Western Allies” however, continued to apply as the name of American, British and French armed forces stationed in West Germany from the period of 1945 to 1994.