Solving the Korean War

Saturday's PMUNC sessions involved settling our second major question: Soviet Involvement in the Korean War.  Admittedly the people on my committee were less interesting in this question than in the German Division question, but I think the Korean Conflict turned out to be quite interesting.
We began the session in October 1950 as the UN coalition forces bear down on the Yalu River.  These UN Coalition forces (from our perspective) threaten the sovereignty of two communist nations (North Korea and China) and have demonstrated capitalist imperialism by over reaching their assigned mission by making incursions into North Korea instead of simply defending South Korea.  To be honest, I'm beginning to think the historical committees are designed to make the delegates appreciate what good decisions were made in the past; as our crises played out, we found ourselves adhering more and more to the course of the actual conflict.  Of course we weren't perfectly historically accurate, but we came pretty damn close.  We began by resolving to send overt humanitarian aid and covert military aid to both the Chinese and North Korean armies and asserting the rights of Communist Nations (simply put, they have the right to exist and other communist nations have the right to defend them).  Then one of our planes got shot down.  A few press releases later, we get word that the Americans are positioning nuclear warheads in the Yellow Sea to bomb China and North Korea and the Chinese forces have simply attacked the Americans (sorry, UN coalition forces) without any directive from Moscow or even close to enough equipment.  We drafted some more press releases, positioned our troops in Eastern Russia in the event of an attack on our sovereign territory (that was a directive I sponsored with the delegate who played Marshal Zhukov) and drafted a peace treaty between the Americans and the Chinese.  Long story short, we narrowly avoided nuclear war.  We also drafted what would have been a precursor to the Warsaw Pact if it had happened in real time.  The document created an economic union between soviet nations and created a mutual defence clause.  This all happened in the space of seven hours.  If that's not enough reason to put Model UN kids in charge of the real world, I don't know what is.

All in all, I had a great time at this conference.  I was originally unsure about it (and by unsure I mean less than excited), but it really turned out to be a great time.  As we say on committee: "Long Live Brosef Stalin, wise, illustrious, glorious, and patriotic leader of the Broviet Union!"

Welcome to PMUNC

As of last night, I am Nikolai Bulganin on the Politburo of the USSR, 1945. Why? you may ask. Because I am a member of the Greenwich Academy delegation at the Princeton Model UN Conference. Just when you thought I couldn't get any nerdier, you find out I'm a Model Government kid. In my defense, I am no where near as intense as some of the other kids. I thought my binder was good, but some kids have 3 1/2 inch binders that legitimately don't close.  But enough about Model Government kids, lets talk about historical international relations!
My committee this year is the Politburo of the USSR, so all the delegates are different members of the main policy making body of the  Soviet Union.  I'm pretty sure the only downside of being on this committee is having to memorize multisylabic russian names.  As of our fourth committee meeting we have resolved our first crisis topic: policy making regarding post-Nazi Germany at the Yalta Conference. One thing that's really cool about historical committees is the ability to correct the mistakes of the past. Of course that's not to say that we have, but having the knowledge that we can is really cool.  I think my committee this year strikes an interesting balance between historical accuracy and fantasy.  We all represent different soviet Russians and we (for the most part) portray them with historical accuracy, but we have to respond to fictional crises.  Today, we were threatened by an Allied that to invade the motherland (which was later discovered to be a bluff) and a Japanese attack on Soviet territory near Vladivostok. Both were dealt with quickly and efficiently. So efficiently that we had time to draft and pass a treaty regarding the division and governance/management of postwar Germany as well a the extraction of reparations from German territories.  In the midst of all this directive passing, three of our number were sent to the gulag and two executed.  It's been a busy day.  Personally, I'm very impressed and happy with our plan for reparations; I think it's comprehensive and effective. I have some reservations regarding the way our treaty divided up Germany, but that's mostly because the plan I sponsored with Korotchenko which comprehensively went through Germany province by province and divided it between the Allied powers didn't get passed. I think the one we did pass is too general.
All in all, I'm really happy with what has gone down already in my committee.  I'll do my best to keep y'all updated, but I'm currently blogging from my phone because I'm too cheap to pay for internet.  Tomorrow we begin our next topic: how to handle Soviet involvement in the Korean conflict. Can't wait!