Crisis Committee CosbucMUN 2021 Review
The USA vs. the USSR: the Space Race
Maybe the most interactive and fast-paced committee at CosbucMUN 2021, the Crisis Committee truly exceeded my expectations and managed to keep me engaged in unprecedented ways! I represented the Secretary of State in the Crisis USA Room and together with my fellow American delegates competed in the Space Race against the USSR. The uniqueness of the chosen topic, the appropriate updates, and the stressful, yet exciting tasks, enhanced my experience and ultimately differentiate this crisis from my past MUN conferences.
Committee introduction
This year’s topic was the Space Race – more specifically the USA vs. the USSR. Thus, the committee was split into the two corresponding rooms which were in contact from time to time at the request of the delegates. Additionally, as a common practice in crisis committees, we weren’t assigned countries, but specific characters that were responsible for a certain department:
USA room – President, Secretary of State, NASA Administrator, NASA Associate Administrator for Strategy and Planning, Chief Human Capital Officer, Director of the CIA, Secretary of Treasury;
USSR room – First Secretary of the Communist Party, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Manager of USSR’s Space Programme, Chief Theoretician, Chairman of the KGB, Minister of Finance.
As the Secretary of State, my job was to assist and consult the Chief of State in all of their decisions and implement the foreign policy for the US. Fortunately, due to the unpredictability of the committee, I had the chance to expand my reach and tackle other tasks as well such as handling the President’s public image, and the propaganda programs implemented in the country and abroad.
In case you are not familiar with the term “directive”, let me explain it to you briefly. The directives are approved by the Chairpersons and written by the delegates of the committee with the purpose of solving, preventing, or modifying the general outlook of the crisis. They can be internal (concerning strictly the room of the delegate who submitted the directive) or external (submitted from one room to another), and public or secret. Overall, even though we were asked to write pertinent directives in a serious and detailed manner, I would say we had a lot of freedom to get creative and come up with original proposals.
Furthermore, throughout the committee sessions, we have received updates coming from the Secretariat and Chairpersons based on our directives and activity. Compared to other conferences, at CosbucMUN, everyone was very receptive and managed to introduce the updates in all sorts of clever formats (i.e. videos, recorded broadcasted announcements from the Heads of State, newspaper excerpts, propaganda posters, etc.) which helped contextualize the situation and gave the debates more substance.
The first day
During the Cold War, the USA and the USSR were involved in the Space Race; a rivalry that at a first glance might seem like a technological competition, but in reality, was a political and ideological contest for world supremacy resting on two different approaches that eventually shaped the discussions in our committee: publicity vs. secrecy.
Our crisis started in 1961, after Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet cosmonaut, completed a full of the Earth’s circumference and returned home safely.
Shortly after the first session began and all the delegates held their speeches at a tour de table, both rooms were reunited for the first time in a Meeting of the Rooms for a special broadcast. I took this as the perfect opportunity to impose myself as a powerful delegate and as such declared political and ideological war on the USSR in one of my speeches. Of course, my move was regarded at first by the other delegates as reckless. Nevertheless, its impact created tension between the rooms and immediately transformed the debates.
After returning to the USA room, we were faced with a special task to decode in a limited amount of time the agenda for the committee.
All the delegates were involved in the discussions and the Chairpersons were very helpful in smoothing out the process which can be a bit tiring or confusing at times.
Both states reached out for help from their allies and worked on developing their space programs. Whenever experiments or testing procedures for our technologies were in order, we had to complete Scientific Tasks. The procedure usually went as follows:
One of the Chairs or Members of the Secretariat arranged four paper plates on the floor (later some modifications involved the delegates holding the plates in front of them) and asked the science experts in the room to prepare several paper balls depending on the number of tries we had. Then, each one of them had to throw one ball at a time on one of the plates. This exercise becomes rather frustrating after a couple of failed attempts. However, it should be acknowledged as a noteworthy addition to the classical crisis MUN format. In the future, it would be interesting to see similar interactive initiatives in other MUN conferences as well.
Eventually, we held a meeting of the Heads of State with the international relations and secret services experts from both rooms to negotiate the latest updates. I appreciated the actual historical references which made the experience more challenging and realistic (e.g. Bay of Pigs Invasion, or the reference to the Cuban Missiles Crisis). Here, POTUS proposed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
With the help of the CIA Director, I have managed to implement a propaganda program in the People’s Republic of China focused on the Sino-Soviet split, which was caused by doctrinal differences present in the interpretations and applications of Marxism-Leninism in the PRC and the USSR.
In the heat of the moment, I requested to discuss in secret with the Chinese leaders. To my surprise, after a couple of minutes, I was asked to leave my room. Outside, one of the Chairs from the other room was waiting for me – I have received my private meeting with Mao Zedong. I can only smile at this wonderful turn of events.
Regardless, the Chinese went against their word and sided with the USSR in the Space Race. Their reasons? According to one of the updates, in their opinion, the American efforts were “insufficient and filled with imperialist infatuation”. The same ideas were later emphasized in a Q&A session with the Chinese leader. Touché, Mao!
In the meantime, the USA started training the first team of women for their space mission, specifically the lunar landing, and the First Secretary of the Communist Party expressed public support for the Washington-Kremlin landline proposed by our room in the first couple of committee sessions.
The second day
The second day came with a series of new challenges and tasks. Another propaganda program was installed, this time in the US, to boost morale and minimize the Soviet developments.
Moreover, we have developed espionage and communications satellites. The Vietnam War and The President's personal involvement was raised into question and brought a couple of problems on a national and international level.
At this point, the directive box was overflowed with submissions, and the Secretariat had to close it and open it only temporarily. At first, this measure came as an inconvenience, however, it allowed us to perfect the directives before submitting them.
In an attempt to gather information from the other room, we have sent the NASA Associate Administrator who expressed her false intent in front of the Soviets to transfer from one room to another. Unfortunately, her offer was rejected by the USSR and our mission failed.
Shortly after, the CIA Director managed to make contact with the Manager of the USSR’s Space Programme who later killed herself, although we suspected she was assassinated by her fellow comrades.
Near the end of the conference, we have trained a group of two men and two women and developed a rover and our rocket for the lunar mission. We introduced a new Scientific Task for the launching and hoped to reach the Moon.
The Verdict was given at the final Meeting of the Rooms. The Secretariat prepared a video with two rockets, one Soviet and one American. Although on the first committee day our communist counterparts were ahead of us and many delegates betted against the US, we have managed to recover with phenomenal speed. I am sure that by now you are curious who won.
So without further due, the Space Race was won by the US! Unfortunately, the Soviet rocket never reached the Moon.
Final thoughts
I believe it’s only fair to dedicate a small paragraph of text to the incredible punishments we have entertained throughout the committee sessions. From dancing to marriage proposals in French at the OIF committee, all punishments managed to bring us all closer and make this MUN memorable for everyone.
None of this would’ve been possible without the truly spectacular Members of the Secretariat, Chairpersons, and Members of the Staff. A special thanks should be reserved for the Secretary-General, Mara Beteagu, who has always been there for us in the Crisis Committee and worked hard to give us the absolute best of everything a MUN conference has to offer.
An overwhelmingly positive experience, the Crisis committee has pushed me to step out of my comfort zone and think out of the box. Besides the knowledge I have gained, I am grateful for the wonderful people I have met here. On a final note, I am looking forward to the next edition of CosbucMUN and cannot wait to see what they have in store for us next year!
Gallery
*Photographs taken by Bianca Popovici, Ilinca Pitiș, and Alexia Magiru.
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