United Nations

The United Nations (UN) is an international organization with 193 member states that was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations to stop war and have a platform of discussion. Its stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achieving world peace.

During the 1970s, the United Nations was requested by Grenada Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy to investigate the UFO Problem in the Central Americas based on photographs of UFOs from a tabloid magazine (one of which also included the AI weapon Chrysalis, which was sold by Sandinista/MSF member Chico as a means to gain funding for the latter group). Later, they also sent nuclear inspectors to Mother Base to inspect whether the MSF was capable of creating nuclear weapons. It was also implied that Cipher was involved in their decision for inspecting Mother Base.

The UN was also involved in several civil wars as peacekeepers, with their last direct involvement in a civil war being in the Somalian Civil War during the 1990s, which led them to become extremely reluctant in getting involved in future civil wars due to the disastrous results of the mission.

From 2005 to 2007, the United Nations also frequently trusted the non-governmental group Philanthropy to investigate whether Metal Gears are being created around the world, although their services were terminated following the Tanker Incident.

The various member states voted circa 2009/2010 to create the war economy and utilize PMCs to deal with various conflicts because they were angered at America for its incident in 2009. America didn't agree to it, but was left with no other choice but to allow them to do so because America exported far too much military power during the Cold War and thus could not let its army get involved without suffering severe public backlash similar to that of the 2009 Manhattan Incident. At some point during 2014, the United Nations also held a ration swap meet that Roy Campbell and Rosemary briefly attended, where the French rations won the taste tests of the judges, and the Italian and Japanese rations being runner up, and American rations being voted unanimously as being the worst-tasting rations.

After the war economy collapsed due to the Patriots and its SOP system being taken offline due to FOXALIVE, Drebin speculated that with various countries going bankrupt due to their use of PMCs, and being under a debt severe enough that not even passing PMC restriction laws was going to be able to end the debt anytime soon, the UN will have a more important role than ever. However, he also implied that the UN, due to its history being no different than the Patriots in terms of control over people, will most likely end up creating a spiritual successor to the Patriots in terms of oppressive control and thus force the cycle to continue.

The PMC Maverick Security Consulting Inc. member Kevin Washington was a former member of a DDR group with ties to the UN, but he quit and joined Maverick, both due to having met its commander, Boris, and because Kevin himself had enough experience on how the UN operates in regards to these things to know that there won't be any real change in keeping peace if he keeps working there.

Behind the scenes
The United Nations was first mentioned in the non-canon game Snake's Revenge, where they were revealed to have declared World Peace Day after Snake destroyed Metal Gear 2. They later made a canonical appearance/mention in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, where they acted as a lobby for Philanthropy, and had somewhat of a major role in Metal Gear Solid 4.