Global Defense Initiative

"Sanctioned by the United Nations, the Global Defense Initiative has one goal: to eliminate multi-national terrorism in an effort to preserve freedom."

- EVA Database briefing

The United Nations Global Defense Initiative (UNGDI), or Global Defense Initiative (GDI), is the premier polity of Earth. It was founded as a formalized military branch of the United Nations at the end of the 20th century and evolved into a supra-national state in its own right. GDI's initial goal was to preserve world order by combating global terrorism, epitomized by its nemesis the Brotherhood of Nod. Its mandate expanded to global environmental protection with the spread of Tiberium.

Official Fact Sheet (1995 onwards)
Founded: In accordance with the United Nations Global Defense Act (UNGDA), the Global Defense Initiative was founded on the date of October 12th, 1995.

Mandate: 1995: To enforce the United Nations Global Defense Act and uphold the ideals as outlined in the United Nations Charter. 2047: To protect global security and exercise global emergency authority, halting the spread of Tiberium as well as deal with any threats to peace & order in the world.

Base of Operations: Global

Headquarters: During the First Tiberium War at the United Nations Military Command Center, location classified. Relocated to the orbital space station "Philadelphia" after the conflict. Other global command centers include GDI bases in Reykjavik and the Pentagon.

Military Strength: 1995: Statistics regarding equipment and personnel are classified. Official military strength lies within parameters of the UNGDA, Article V, Section 3A, Paragraph 12. GDI posses several prototype ion cannon satellites 2047 Information classified, but likely millions of enlisted, hundreds of thousands combat vehicles and thousands of aircraft. GDI possess nuclear capability although old United Nations Security Council internal agreements about not-using nuclear arsenal is still in force...GDI also possess a network of orbital ion cannon satellites, that now rival the power of tactical nukes.

Economic Strength: 1995: Funded by the United Nations, various international governments, public organizations and private enterprises. 2047: Estabilished funding from multiple Tiberium mining operations and financial backing from GDI member countries.

Political Strength: 1995: Not applicable. Operates within parameters of the UNGDA and under the review of the United Nations Security Council. 2047: Planetary superpower and de facto Blue Zone real government, as well as having formal authority over Yellow Zones. In theory, a multinational organization with bureaucratic administration, serving as a global provisional government.

Affiliations: The United Nations (Governing body). G8 countries (Primary founding nations, originally referred to as the G7 countries during the First Tiberium War). Numerous other First World, former Second World and newly industrialized countries (Participants and member states of the post-First Tiberium War era).

Leadership
Military
 * During the First Tiberium War: Brigadier General (acting Lieutenant General) Mark Jamison Sheppard.
 * During the Second Tiberium War: General James Solomon.
 * During the Firestorm Crisis: Lieutenant General Paul Cortez.


 * Prior to the events of the Third Tiberium War: General Zachary Harkin.
 * During the events of the Third Tiberium War: Lieutenant General Jack Granger.

Bureaucratic
 * During the First Tiberium War: Overseen by the UN Secuirty Council and UN Defense Secretary Charles Olivetti.
 * Prior to the Third Tiberium War: Director Lia Kinsburg.
 * During the Third Tiberium War: Director Redmond Boyle.

Origins
The Global Defense Initiative, or GDI, was originally a covert multinational special forces group operating under the designation of Operations Group Echo: Black Ops 9 before 1996. The organization was formed by the United Nations Security Council in the aftermath of the World Wars, and was designed to be a covert, specialized peace enforcing unit with a mandate to operate worldwide, outside of regular UN forces. The unit was equipped with both the military and political means to deal with anything from local ethnic unrest to regionalized armed conflicts across the globe, and was given as its primary directive the ensuring that no fledgling conflict would ever escalate into a continental or worldwide emergency again.

The roots of GDI could be found back during the Great World War II, following the devastation of Greece. Reacting to the Soviet brutality, the United Nations approved a unique initiative. The purpose of the proposal was to provide military funding to help increase the Allied Forces support. More importantly, the initiative called for the creation of an agency for global defense.

As ''O. G. E.:B. O.9'' repeatedly became deployed throughout the world over the many years however, rumors about their existence slowly began to seep into the mainstream public consciousness. Eventually, the overseeing Security Council came to the decision that transparency and limited disclosure were the best response to the international media speculations on the nature and the purpose of the secret unit. The final proverbial straw for this would come when an operation in which the attempted assassination upon Saddam Hussein, in a covert effort to prevent the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War, failed miserably and resulted in the death of a large number of agents. This incident, coupled with the rapid global spread of a mysterious and toxic extraterrestrial substance known as Tiberium, as well as the ever increasing influence of the globalized Brotherhood of Nod society, prompted the Security Council to begin to greatly expand and revise the mandate as well as the purpose of ''O. G. E.:B. O.9''. The organization was restructured and was brought out of the shadows in order to make it capable of tackling the threats of the modern ages effectively as well as directly. In accordance with the United Nations Global Defense Act (UNGDA), the UNGDI or fully the United Nations Global Defense Initiative was founded at the date of October 12th, 1995.

The UN proposal stated the following:

"The Global Defense Initiative was founded to enforce the United Nations Global Defense Act and uphold the ideals as outlined in the United Nations Charter."

Their first supreme commander became the American Brigadier General Mark Jamison Sheppard, United Nations Military Command.

The First Tiberium War
During the First Tiberium War GDI fought Nod forces on a multitude of fronts. Eventually, Nod propaganda efforts painted GDI as being responsible for atrocities such as the slaughter of the entire population of Bialystok, through a series of false news programs recorded by Greg Burdette, which forced GDI to pull back from many territories which were then quickly taken over by Nod supporters. This culminated in the UN becoming forced to discontinue its public funding of GDI due to fear of public rebuke. Nod began assaulting GDI strongholds everywhere, believing that the organization had been severely weakened by these manipulative efforts.

As it turned out, the UN had faked their financial withdrawal in an attempt to outwit Nod's leader Kane, a brilliant and charismatic man. The plan was successful, and Nod forces were greatly surprised to find the bases they were attacking were heavily fortified. Most attacks were complete victories for GDI. Two more years of fighting continued, however, until GDI operatives finally located Nod's main global headquarters, the so-called "Temple of Nod", just outside of Sarajevo. A three day battle began between GDI and Nod's most elite troops. GDI could not break through the Black Hand and had to use their most advanced weapon - the orbital Ion Cannon - was activated. The Temple was destroyed, Kane was pronounced dead, and Nod was crippled, effectively ending the First Tiberium War.

The Second Tiberium War
With the destruction of the Brotherhood's Sarajevo Temple a period of peace dawned, allowing time for GDI to renew its efforts into researching Tiberium and to study the Brotherhood of Nod's enigmatic and radically advanced Tiberium-based technology. However, GDI forces never recovered Kane's body which was considered by many to be the biggest oversight of the entire war. During these years tabloid headlines and rumors of the continued underground existence of the Brotherhood were commonplace, prompting GDI to conduct investigations into these sightings before eventually sealing each case with few questions answered. The world remained largely at peace until September 2, 2030, when GDI bases around the world found themselves under heavy fire from Nod units. Aboard the "Philadelphia", GDI's top brass could make little sense of it; the Brotherhood as an organized and globalized militant force was supposed to have been almost eliminated and left divided into small and harmless splinter groups after Kane's death. And then the unthinkable happened.

GDI's communication equipment was hacked, and in a broadcast to the "Philadelphia", Kane revealed himself to be alive, thereby declaring his return to the global political and military scene. Alarmed with this development, general James Solomon assigned field commander Michael McNeil the task of leading the efforts of countering the Nod assaults and taking the battle to them, thus initiating the Second Tiberium War.

The final battle this time took place in Cairo, with GDI forces striking once again at the heart of Nod, Kane's pyramid and rebuilt Temple. McNeil and Kane went one-on-one and in the end Kane was impaled with a steel beam. GDI subsequently secured the mysterious Tacitus device, which could potentially provide the organization with the means to end the Tiberium infestation on the planet.

The Aftermath
Shortly after Kane's second "death," it was revealed that the vaccine which The Forgotten leader Tratos had developed and had administered to his kin Umagon proved to be ineffective in curing, or even halting, Tiberium mutations within a human being, instead grossly accelerating mutations. Time began running out quickly as the Tiberium infestation increasingly continued to threaten the future and the very survival of humanity on Earth. GDI thus began to focus the majority of its resources and efforts into unlocking the secrets of the Tacitus while defending themselves against the remainder of the Brotherhood. Tratos however was assassinated by forces led by a Nod commander. This left GDI with no alternative other than to attempt to capture the Brotherhood's artificial intelligence unit named CABAL, which was rumored to be able to decode all the information contained within the Tacitus device by means similar to those of Tratos. Anton Slavik, leading that what was left of Nod's core, organized armed forces after the conclusion of the Second Tiberium War, was also working on reactivating CABAL in order to regain their logistical and tactical advantages, and more importantly to prevent the Brotherhood of Nod from fracturing into splinter groups again as it did after the conclusion of the First Tiberium War. When GDI recovered the final piece to the Tacitus however, CABAL suddenly turned on both GDI and Nod in a move that would reveal itself to be part of an independent and premeditated plan of the AI itself. CABAL's increasing threat eventually led to an unholy alliance between GDI and Nod, with both armies destroying two fronts of CABAL's cyborg production and resource gathering facilities. Their missions succeeded, with GDI and Nod mounting a final assault on the renegade artificial intelligence's system core.

Upon CABAL's termination, GDI apparently managed to develop a 'cure' for the Tiberium infestation on Earth based on the information they recovered from the Tacitus device, but whether or not they fully succeeded in utilizing this data is unknown. It was later revealed in the Third Tiberium War that Sonic Disrupters could break down Tiberium, and that humans should be prepared for a foreshadowed Scrin invasion.

Interbellum
Between the Firestorm Crisis and the Third Tiberium War GDI closed many of it's bases, focusing on the elimination of the CABAL's remnants and the eradication of Tiberium. During this time GDI didn't see Nod as a threat, continuing it's activities and organization with secrecy, except for the Rio Insurrection and the destruction of Nod's Stealth Research Lab under GDI command in Australia.

Along with placing emphasis on ecological recovery and securing the Blue Zones, GDI decided to close several of its military bases, as Nod seemed to be too fractured to provide any resistance to GDI forces. By 2043, they had closed down over 60% of their military bases worldwide. The closure of these bases freed much-needed resources for the newly prioritized task of ecological clean-up.

Before the onset of the Third Tiberium War, GDI controlled all of the uncontaminated Blue Zones and many of the contaminated, but habitable, Yellow Zones across the planet. With the Blue Zones consisting of a mere 20% of the Earth's surface, the majority of the world's population lived in Yellow Zones, in which the Brotherhood was still able to operate and maintained major influence in some of them. Neither side controlled the Red Zones, areas where the surface had been so badly scarred by Tiberium mutation that it was unrecognizable as Earth and completely inhospitable, at least to non-mutated carbon-based life-forms.

GDI had consolidated its power, becoming a de facto world government, being in charge of the Blue Zones and most of the Yellow Zones. While there technically still were member countries, the divisions were of no importance. By this time administrative authority for GDI passed from the United Nations to GDI's own Council of Directors. Ironically, GDI becoming a superstate, replacing national governments is exactly what Kane said would happen.

The diversification of purpose led to GDI's military forces becoming a branch of the organization, in the form of the GDI United Peacekeepers (GDIUP). As the years of peace following the Second Tiberium War continued, GDI became somewhat complacent, controversially phasing out some of its more experimental combat technologies (perhaps most infamously the majority of its mechanized walkers, including the Titan and Mammoth Mk. II).

The Third Tiberium War
However, this period of peace was short lived, as Nod's breakup was a mere illusion. The Brotherhood of Nod struck quickly, infiltrating the Goddard Space Center and disabling GDI 's A-SAT (Anti-Satellite) defense systems, responsible for defending GDI's space operations from hostile attacks. Nod then launched a nuclear missile at the Philadelphia while GDI 's leadership was in council on-board, critically disrupting GDI's command structure and causing widespread chaos. Meanwhile Nod forces launched a co-ordinated strike against Blue Zones worldwide. GDI repelled Nod from the Blue Zones after several days of intense fighting, and launched a counter-attack upon what was thought to be a Nod chemical weapons facility in Egypt. It was quickly revealed that this facility was researching and developing a Liquid Tiberium Bomb. GDI crippled Nod's nuclear capabilities in Cairo before proceeding to Sarajevo and using an Ion Cannon on the Brotherhood's Temple Prime by order of acting GDI director Redmond Boyle, and against the wishes of GDI General Jack Granger.

The Ion Cannon hit a liquid Tiberium deposit beneath Temple Prime, vaporizing it and causing a large chain reaction wiping out what remained of Sarajevo and the surrounding regions, while at the same time spreading deadly Tiberium fallout all over Eastern European Yellow Zones. The resulting death toll was in the millions.

Just as GDI thought it had won the war, alien invaders known as the Scrin, apparently atttracted by the liquid Tiberium explosion, arrived and wrought havoc upon GDI and Nod alike. GDI deep space scans picked the Scrin up even before they arrived, and in a state of panic Redmond Boyle rashly ordered the entire southern hemisphere's network of Ion Cannons to be activated and unleashed on the aliens. This only served to send 39 Drone Ships crashing into Red Zones throughout the world. Upon landing, the aliens quickly began striking at blue zones all over the globe. After repelling the invaders from several of their blue zones, GDI discovered the invaders' seemingly random attacks were just a distraction from the massive, monolithic towers that were being constructed for an unknown purpose and systematically destroyed them. Unbeknownst to GDI, Kane resurfaced once more to end an inner power struggle with one of his generals and seeked to control one of the Scrin Towers in an effort to learn more about Tiberium and the alien's technology. As the war ended, only one tower survived the conflict, having been protected from attack until it was completed and became invulnerable to GDI attacks.

GDI stopped the invasion and plans to keep the remaining Tower, which ended under Nod control, supposedly inactive and harmless. A number of Scrin invaders were forced to flee for the time being. It is unknown whether or not the first Scrin incursion was a full invasion or something else.

Post-TWIII
GDI emerged as the apparent victor in the Third Tiberium War, having once again driven Nod underground and neutralized the Scrin harvesting forces on Earth. The GDI, and therefore Earth, was reigned with silence and peace which lasted several years.

However, much to their surprise, that silence was broken when in 2052, Nod forces, under the command of the experimental combat AI of the Marked of Kane, known only as LEGION, raided the Cheyenne Mountain Complex and reclaimed the Tacitus for its creator, who is none other than Kane himself, who has in fact been hiding underground. Despite heavy resistance from ZOCOM, the Steel Talons and the baseline GDI forces stationed there, including the formidable Mammoth Armed Reclamation Vehicle, they were unprepared for the assault of LEGION's cybernetic army.

2062
GDI's Tiberium abatement efforts failed after the Third Tiberium War. Tiberium unexpectedly underwent yet another evolution, now growing at such an aggressive rate that it spread across the entire planet unchecked by all conventional means. By 2062, Tiberium infestation was so great that it was predicted that the human race would be completely wiped out within a matter of years. (Just as the Scrin had earlier expected). Kane resurfaced once more and, given the dire situation, approached GDI to form an uneasy alliance.

GDI military doctrine
The GDI relies on a combination of powerful, rugged, and versatile technology. Standard GDI doctrine calls for combined arms "shock and awe" warfare, unleashing devastating and comprehensive assaults with mixed air, land, sea, and space-based weapons. Outside observers have been recorded as noting that GDI's offensive operations are a "slow-moving juggernaut" that crushes through all opposition with a force of extremely well-armored and supported assault units. Man-for-man and vehicle-for-vehicle, GDI weapons systems are often superior to their opponents in terms of raw firepower and durability. As for base defense it differs little from their offensive doctrine. They use a number of heavy fire power defense platforms, each suited to a different type of enemy - 20mm rapid-fire automatic railguns for infantry hordes, and powerful Sonic Emitters or railgun equipped turrets in some cases to wipe out an advancing armour division. They will use sheer brute force to not just stop but to completely obliterate a hostile force. A failed attack on a GDI base will often leave few or no survivors. This philosophy is summed up in GDI's iconic Mammoth series of super heavy tanks, from the original X-66 Mammoth Tank, to the devastating Mammoth Mk. II and the awe inspiring Mammoth Armed Reclamation Vehicle, both nearly unstoppable juggernauts of power in their day.

Preferring overwhelming firepower to subtlety, GDI forces have few stealth units. Rapid attack capabilities are generally supplied by light assault vehicles, such as the iconic Orca VTOL aircraft, and orbitally-deployed Drop Troops or Zone Troopers. Their weapons systems range from conventional firearms, smoothbore cannons, and guided missiles to high velocity railguns, highly destructive Sonic weaponry, and state of the art orbital Ion cannons.

Within GDI, certain military units exist with exclusive access to top-of-the-line technologies. For instance, in the span of time between the Second and Third Tiberium Wars, the Steel Talons armored division was founded to provide a testing bed for GDI's more experimental technologies, focusing on mechanised units. Many of the units first fielded by the Talons became standard for all of GDI by the Third Tiberium War. Operating as of the Third Tiberium War, Zone Operations Command is a high tech military special operations group specializing in Tiberium reclamation and operations in hazardous environments, such as Red Zones. While it lacks access to certain heavy firepower technologies, such as railguns, ZOCOM has access to extremely advanced harmonic resonance technology.

In addition, to win the support of the local populace, GDI organizes humanitarian aid in the form of refugee aid air drops and occasional excursions to Yellow Zones to provide medical aid.

One of GDI's largest and most powerful vehicles, the Mammoth Armed Reclamation Vehicle (MARV), is the one of these final means of dealing both with Tiberium with its onboard refinery as well as dealing with Nod heretics and hostile mutants through its unparalleled firepower.

In Command & Conquer 4 the Mammoth Tank is not the strongest tank on the battlefield. The Firehawks, Orcas and their arsenal was upgraded and the GDI deployed the very first Crawler to support their huge armies.

Technology Level
GDI technological development has been brought about by the financial support of the G8 nations, the wealthiest economies of the world during the First Tiberium War. Developments in recent years include sonic weaponry and quickly specialized hovercraft. GDI has countered Nod's increasing arsenal of lasers with railguns, fielded by everything from Mammoth Tanks to Commandos, and has also researched into powered armour technologies. The pinnacle of GDI military technology, the Ion cannon, is a space-based energy weapon of mass destruction is capable of obliberating just about anything with pinpoint accuracy. GDI also pioneered the use of mechanized walkers and developed the ORCA aircraft series of VTOL aircraft, a unique design which incorporates VTOL technology into helicopters.

Following the First Tiberium War, military research and development rapidly increased, with the development of a wide number of technologies. Space exploration, mechanized walkers, and HoverTech were some of the technological achievements of GDI by the Second Tiberium War. However, due to cuts in budget and new GDI policies after 2036, GDI has phased out its more expensive and exotic technologies, such as most of its Mechanized walkers and HoverTech, replacing them with cheaper, more reliable technologies. GDI hasn't forgone all of its more exotic technologies. GDI still has some walkers, though they are mainly used by the Steel Talons experimental division. The Juggernaut is the only mainstream walker left in use while the Steel Talons used the Titan Mk. II, Wolverine Mk. II, and Behemoth in their forces. GDI also hasn't comepletely abandoned hover technology either. In the interbellum between the Firestorm Crisis and the Third Tiberium War, GDI developed a dedicated anti-aircraft vehicle, the Slingshot. GDI also retooled the Shatterer, another hovercraft which was originally developed for civilian use, but GDI realised their potential ad confiscated them for military use in the opening stages of the Third Tiberim War.

GDI lags behind Nod in other areas, however. While GDI has a greater presence in outer space, and can afford larger, more expensive tanks, Nod has outpaced them in terms of optic camouflage and laser technology. Nod's disregard towards ethical guidelines means that Nod is the world's leader in Cybernetics and the military applications of Tiberium, two areas where GDI is reluctant to begin research. However, GDI is unrivalled in terms of Tiberium reclamation technology and second only to the Scrin in terms of space technology. Their global headquarters was the space station GDSS Philadelphia until it was destroyed, and they also have orbital facilities to house, store and maintain military forces in preparation for a rapid deployment anywhere on Earth via dropships and drop pods. Of particular importance is their network of orbital Ion cannons which acts as a tactial superweapon. All were used to their maximum potential throughout the wars. They apparently maintained their dominance of space even during the Scrin invasion.

Their efforts to reverse the environmentally catastrophic effects of Tiberium has led to the development of several technologies against Tiberium infestation, a technological area in which Nod and the Scrin have traditionally shown little interest in. Most of these center around the breakthrough discovery of Tiberium's harmonic resonance frequency which, at least for a period of time, allowed GDI to contain and even push back Tiberium growth. Examples include the Sonic Emitters, which was also deployed as extremely effective base defence, the Sonic Repulsor Field and the Shatterer. Prior to the Third Tiberium War their efforts have had some success in converting some areas into Blue zones, such as New Eden. However, in the years following the next evolution of Tiberium rendered GDI Harmonic Resonance technology useless and all of GDI's reclamation efforts were quickly negated.

GDI research is carried out in a variety of specialized institutions worldwide. Futuretech Labs is a prominent example, and the research staff was located in New Eden, until the initial Scrin invasion forced them to evacuatw. Australia hosted a prominent Tiberium research facility before the research site was destroyed by the Black Hand. Rumors abound that the site was researching Liquid Tiberium and that a major detonation of Liquid Tiberium at the facility was the the cause of its destruction and also accelerated the growth of Tiberium throughout Australia, speeding up its transformation into a Red Zone.

In the final war the GDI developed many technologies in that timeline including the Crawler and the Mastodon walkers.

Units within GDI

 * Steel Talons
 * ZOCOM
 * GDI Spec Ops

Notable members

 * GDI Commander (TWIII)
 * Mark Jamison Sheppard
 * Nick Parker
 * James Solomon
 * Michael McNeil
 * Paul Cortez
 * Redmond Boyle
 * Jack Granger
 * List of GDI members and affiliates

Further intel

 * First Tiberium War archives