Editing United Nations Security Council (section)

=== Cold War ===
[[File:Church House Westminister London 2016 (02).JPG|thumb|[[Church House, Westminster|Church House]] in London where the first Security Council Meeting took place on 17 January 1946]]

The Security Council was largely paralysed in its early decades by the [[Cold War]] in between the US and USSR and their allies and the Council generally was only able to intervene in unrelated conflicts.{{sfn|Meisler|1995|p=35}} (A notable exception was the 1950 Security Council resolution authorizing a US-led coalition to repel the [[Korean War|North Korean invasion of South Korea]], passed in the [[Soviet Union boycott of the United Nations|absence of the USSR]].)<ref name=unmilestones/>{{sfn|Meisler|1995|pp=58–59}} In 1956, the [[United Nations Emergency Force|first UN peacekeeping force]] was established to end the [[Suez Crisis]];<ref name=unmilestones/> however, the UN was unable to intervene against the USSR's simultaneous invasion of Hungary following the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956]]{{sfn|Meisler|1995|p=114}} Cold War divisions also paralysed the Security Council's [[Military Staff Committee]], which had been formed by Articles 45–47 of the UN Charter to oversee UN forces and create UN military bases. The committee continued to exist on paper but largely abandoned its work in the mid-1950s.{{sfn|Kennedy|2006|pp=38, 55–56}}<ref name=Chapter7>{{cite web |url=https://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter7.shtml |title=Charter of the United Nations: Chapter VII: Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression |publisher=United Nations |access-date=26 November 2013 |archive-date=5 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090505055751/https://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter7.shtml |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1960, the UN deployed the [[United Nations Operation in the Congo]] (UNOC), the largest military force of its early decades, to restore order to the breakaway [[State of Katanga]], restoring it to the control of the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]] by 1964.{{sfn|Meisler|1995|pp=115–134}} However, the Security Council found itself bypassed in favour of direct negotiations between the superpowers in some of the decade's larger conflicts, such as the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] or the [[Vietnam War]].{{sfn|Kennedy|2006|pp=61–62}} Focusing instead on smaller conflicts without an immediate Cold War connection, the Security Council deployed the [[United Nations Temporary Executive Authority]] in [[West New Guinea]] in 1962 and the [[United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus]] in 1964, the latter of which would become one of the UN's longest-running peacekeeping missions.{{sfn|Meisler|1995|pp=156–157}}{{sfn|Kennedy|2006|p=59}}

On 25 October 1971, over US opposition, but with the support of many [[Third World]] nations, along with the [[Socialist People's Republic of Albania]], the mainland, communist [[People's Republic of China]] replaced [[Republic of China]] with a seat on the Security Council; the vote was widely seen as a sign of waning US influence in the organization.{{sfn|Meisler|1995|pp=195–197}} With an increasing Third World presence and the failure of UN mediation in conflicts in the [[Six-Day War|Middle East]], [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]] and [[Indo-Pakistani War of 1965|Kashmir]], the UN increasingly shifted its attention to its ostensibly secondary goals of economic development and cultural exchange. By the 1970s, the UN budget for social and economic development was far greater than its budget for peacekeeping.{{sfn|Meisler|1995|pp=167–168, 224–225}}