When the Avengers movie was being made, the Department of Defense refused to participate. Their reasoning was that the command relationship of the SHIELD organization is not clearly defined. This is actually a rational concern, that has never been adequately addressed by Marvel.

Is SHIELD an intelligence organization? Then it should take orders from the Director of Central Intelligence (the cabinet level person the CIA and NSA answer to.) A military organization? Then it should take orders from the Secretary of Defense. A law enforcement organization? Then it should take orders from the Secretary of Justice. Some combination of the above? An independent with its director a cabinet level appointment approved by congress?

Moreover, SHIELD is often portrayed as having an international element. Sometimes it is said that SHIELD has treaty ties to the United Nations. The problem with that is simply: the U.N. charter is written so that the organization cannot compell its members in any way. Any action by the U.N. requires both a majority vote of the general assembly and the unanimous consent of the Security Council. The U.N. charter will not allow the existense of any sort of law enforcement body.

I have an idea. I believe my idea answers those two critical questions. And I developed my idea based upon Jack Kirby's original design for the SHIELD badge. You may recall that design had a crossed pistol and dagger with twelve stars on red white and blue field.

Within Marvelverse canon it is established that the ancient conspiricy know as Hydra was taken over by the Red Skull and a cabal of his officers when they realized the war was lost and their personal power was more important to them than their nationalism. It is also established that allied intelligence had knowledge of the existence of Hydra, and some idea of the threat it posed. After the end of the war, this criminal enterprise saw its ranks swell with war criminals, adrenalin junkies and displaced persons.

In 1949, twelve nations signed a defensive alliance intended to prevent a resurgence of a militaristic Germany and block Soviet expansionism. This alliance became the institution we know as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is entirely reasonable to suggest that when NATO began to take on it's proactive military posture (after the Korean War) a special Unified Command was created to support and coordinate law enforcement and counter intelligence operations across the borders of the member states. It is also reasonable to suggest that, in order to monitor and "watchdog" this extraordinary element, a diplomatic oversight committee was also established.

Thus the Jack Kirby design of a dagger representing the counter-intelliegence function, a pistol representing the law enforcement function, and twelve stars representing the twelve founding member-states of NATO.

The obvious limit here is that NATO is a headquarters with no troops. All the forces in NATO are actually member-state forces acting under clearly defined treaty obligations. Putting any muscle behind this unified NATO command for coordinating law enforcement activities would require participation from the members.

Marvelverse canon states that in the late fifties Tony Stark approached the U.S. president to request a special organization or department to address what Tony saw as the threat posed by Hydra and other trans-national criminal organizations. I presume that Tony was freshly pulled from school and speaking on behalf of his recently departed (killed in a car accident) father, Howard. Eisenhower would not have been receptive to Tony. Ike had become wary of what he called the military industrial complex and in his mind, Tony would have seemed to represent those interests.

A couple of years later, Tony tried again. But if his second attempt was to Kennedy, he would have received a very different reception. Kennedy liked ivy league intellectuals and would have seen Tony in that light. Kennedy was also more interested in finding new and unconventional approaches to the problems he faced. SHIELD would have fit right into his approach.

From there it is only a short step to suggest that as a condition of U.S. providing SHIELD to NATO, the U.S. is guaranteed a seat on the oversight committee for a member of the presidents cabinet. Whether that seat is filled by Justice, Defence or Intelligence would depend upon the whim of the sitting president. SHIELD command would go through the unified command and the oversight committee to NATO for its international management, and through the U.S. member of the oversight committee to the President for its domestic management.

It all fits.

This idea as it applies to the Marvel copywrite SHIELD organization is open source. I claim no copywrite of my own. Anybody may use this idea at will; so long as they do not claim it as original. Credit to me would be appreciated, but is not essential.

Joe Crislip

12 September 2012

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