The Preferred Idea of Federalism of Free States Between Different Cultures - Essay Example

Were the liberal thinkers of the interwar period wrong to believe that peace can be secured through international law and s? Kant observedmore than two centuries ago in his Perpetual Peace that the natural position of governments towards counterparts was war and that because actual physical battles between humans is unethical and “inconsistent with the rights of humanity”. He proposed war could be institutionalized and regulated so the eternal differences between people and societies can be systematically resolved as part of a well-established system that brings the notion of peace to the people’s life. Kant envisions this system as an association between different cultures, leading to the preferred idea of federalism of free states. He also predicts that, for a society to avoid war, the legislative and executive arms must function independently from one another and their empowerment come from the people as opposed as from a ruler, having confidence in that the people themselves know of the catastrophic consequences of war and thus would avoid it as fiercely as possible. This last idea is what leads Kant to recommend a republican civic constitution for the State. The French Revolution started an era of relatively rapid spread of liberalism throughout the world. Liberalism made roots in most regions globally, being always in constant evolution to cope with the ever changing social and economic conditions and also to continually improve the relations between nations. Nevertheless, the beginnings of the nineteenth century saw the bursting of the terrible World War I, which outcome was thought as first as a victory for liberal politics since the great dynasty empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Ottoman Turkey had ceased to exist as aristocracies. The League of Nations, conceived in a train of thought totally congruent with Kant’s ideas, was created in an effort to have an organism that would mediate between international conflicts, avoiding at all means another slaughter as dreadful as the war that had just finished. As a reaction to the First World War, many international anti-war movements were born; some examples are the British League of Nations Society, the Fabian Society, the Round Table Group and the American League to Enforce Peace (Ginneken 3). But it was United States President Woodrow Wilson who devotedly promoted the idea that resulted into The League of Nations which was finally approved by the Paris Peace Conference on January 25th, 1919 and established on June 28th, 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles. Ironically, the United States never joined the League due to opposition of the Senate and Wilson’s unfortunate loss of health. (Northedge). One of the causes for the US Senate refusal for being a member was their rejection to the possibility of other countries mandating in their internal business, and this conflict between international cooperation and independence of the nations also touched another countries later on when the Second World War exploded, proving to be one of the very delicate points of equilibrium that has to be taken care of in order to achieve an international institution that is successful in ruling and negotiating to maintain peace. It was intended that the League of Nations also enforced liberal ideas in all the member countries. For example, the International Labour Organization was created as an autonomous agency of the League and its main goal was to promote the welfare of workers, they sponsored eight hour work days and endorsed improvement of working children and women. At first the League was dedicated to solve the territorial disputes that were unsettled after World War I but with the passing of the years, its role expanded and became a true center at least for European diplomats. The League was relatively successful in the first years of its creation, solving territorial conflicts, promoting progress in human rights, health, and labor conditions for all the countries that were members. However, many countries never became members, most notably the US, and others membership was only temporal and subject to discussion, as Germany which was not allowed to join in the beginning since it took the blaming for World War I, or Soviet Russia that was also left out because it was communist. This lack of involvement of all the countries in the world, or at least of the more powerful, could not promote peace as extensively as desired; from my point of view, actual members would have a hard time abiding to enact resolutions if they know other nations, possibly competitors either in military power or commercial gain, will not. Even worse, the withdrawals of Japan and Germany at a later stage provoked by their unconformity with League’s resolutions, made the international organization look too weak, not being able to enforce its rulings and permitting countries just separate when they disagree giving no sense of commitment to the other remaining adherents. Nevertheless, even if they resulted to be not effective enough, the League did have established mechanisms of enforcement. They involved the participation and cooperation of all members to provide the military resources that put into force the determinations made; this meant that the countries had to go in a different direction than their usual external affairs politics, having the open possibility of being required to go against nations that had been friendly or ally with others with which were alienated otherwise (Ginneken). The reasoning behind the conception of such enforcement system is a very logical and it seems to be a necessary binder for the members of international institutions for peace efforts to succeed but it requires a level of trusting on the organization from its adherents that makes them put the collective decisions and policy making above their own. Thus, the construction of trustworthiness and reliability beyond doubt of an international institution combined with the sincere will of nations to cooperate and also help build this trust is another key for building an organism capable of maintaining peace. Then, in the late twenties, another period of great turmoil arrived. Great Depression settled leaving an open path for Nazism and Fascism to establish and also weakening other nations and thus preventing them to take action against the threatening expanding German forces. Japan invaded Manchuria and left the League of Nations and then Italy invaded Abyssinia. Germany then remilitarized under the pretense of supporting Franco during the Spanish Civil War and ended up invading Poland in September 1939 officially starting the Second World War and making utterly evident the failure of the League which, in fact, never officially died but just faded away. Even though in the Second World War the death count was much greater than in the First, showing that not only the League but the whole system of international relations was a real fiasco, when it ended the idea for an international institution that promoted peace between nations was revived and in 1945 the UN was created. As Charles Townshead mentions in an interesting BBC document: A significant number of the old Leagues aims and methods were transmitted into the new organization in 1945. Among these were not only such low-key but effective institutions as the International Court and the International Labour Organization, but also the working assumptions of the secretariat, and some key operations - including those that would soon come to be called peacekeeping operations (Townshead) The UN was then founded using the experience that had been gain with the former League of Nations, learning from its mistakes and retaking the successful features. As all systems in the world, this kind of international relations organization had to evolve to become more successful, to adapt better to the world reality, and to achieve a better consensus and commitment of the different players. The UN, for instance, has established military politics explained in the following paragraph of its “Principles and Guidelines for Peacekeeping Operations”: This document reflects the multi-dimensional nature of contemporary United Nations peacekeeping operations, which are normally led in the field by a senior United Nations political figure. It does not seek to override the national military doctrines of individual Member States participating in these operations and it does not address any military tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), which remain the prerogative of individual Member States. It is, nonetheless, intended to support civilian, police and military personnel who are training and preparing to serve in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Troop Contributing Countries and Police Contributing Countries (TCCs/PCCs) to United Nations peacekeeping operations may wish to draw on this document in developing their respective doctrines, training and pre-deployment programmes. (10) They also mention that the three basic principles of UN peacekeeping are: Consent of the parties, impartiality, and non-use of force except in self-defense and defense of the mandate. It can be inferred that the UN is seeking to give countries assurance for keeping their individuality regarding techniques and procedures, giving the liberty to choose how to enforce actions when required while the organization itself retains the authority to coordinate the efforts and the responsibility to back them up. In reality, this kind of approach has not seen many examples fructiferous results when implanting UN resolutions in any given conflict but at this point trials for strengthen the enforcement policies could be rejected by the community of nations and also would go against the policy for disarmament that the same organization holds. The truth is, for the UN to progress as a peace securing entity, it should either seek a more effective way of ensuring its rulings are followed or it should find a way to commit nations to not take the decision to go to war in the first place. In another section of its “Principles and Guidelines for Peacekeeping Operations”, the UN summaries its peacekeeping functions as follows: Within this broader context, the core functions of a multi-dimensional United Nations peacekeeping operation are to: a) Create a secure and stable environment while strengthening the State’s ability to provide security, with full respect for the rule of law and human rights; b) Facilitate the political process by promoting dialogue and reconciliation and supporting the establishment of legitimate and effective institutions of governance; c) Provide a framework for ensuring that all United Nations and other international actors pursue their activities at the country-level in a coherent and coordinated manner. (23) Their main focus is to intervene in a conflicted State the less possible and only to support it while it gains enough stability to run itself and establish institutions with foundations strong enough to restore an organized and safe life for the population. The inherent problem here is how to determine who will be the party responsible for the reconstruction since typically there are several groups claiming the right to control a country’s government and the UN should be very careful when delivering control of the strengthened institutions since it again is a delicate point of equilibrium between peace efforts and interventionism. Ideally, since the UN promotes democracy (it is one of its core values), elections should be fomented and guided, giving people all decisions starting from the type and structure of government that will be installed even giving them the choice to take as model the government style of any other given country. But for that to happen, the UN would need to have much more empowerment and support from the rest of the world. Addressing the ideal of enduring peace and how it could be secured, the causes for war must be understood or at least analyzed. Even though this is a topic that has been reviewed, scrutinized, and theorized by many, there is not a general scientific consensus of the exact causes. Levy categorizes the theories in the following groups: Systemic level theories. Many of them fall below the realist paradigm in which it is assumed that “states can be treated as if they are unitary actors with a single set of reasonably well-defined interests” (Levi 224) and that “Although security interests and other interests reinforce each other over the long term, in the short term the occasionally come into conflict and, when that happens, security interests are given priority. The primary means to security is power” (Levi 225). The balance of power theory also falls in this category. It claims, ambiguously according to Levy, that power naturally tends to distribute itself uniformly, sometimes resulting in war as a means to reaching equilibrium. Societal-Level Theories. They debate about conditions internal to states. One example is Kant’s ideas for international peace where he endorses republican governments as a way of empowering societies to prevent wars. Decision-Making Theories. They “focus on the individuals and governmental organizations that are empowered to make and implement policies on behalf of the State” (Levy 274). In spite of all the different approaches for understanding what causes war, it is undeniable that war has a foreseeable cost and that for countries to take the decisions of participating in one; they must predict a profit worthy enough to make the effort. Therefore, institutions seeking to maintain peace should make sure this potential profit is never an incentive; either by increasing the cost of going to war through economic or even territorial punishment, or by being always aware of potential profits to be able to negotiate them before the temptation of war prevails. Either way implies more involvement in the states’ internal affairs from international organizations than countries today, let aside in the interwar period, are ready to accept. But if some day in the future a consensus is achieved and countries become willing to let neighbors jointly and candidly intervening in their internal businesses in exchange of peace, then the securing of peace by an adequately empowered international organization is achievable. The preceding idea is parallel to Rousseau’s Social Contract but extrapolated to nations instead of individuals. He argued about people that “in surrendering their individual freedom, they acquire political liberty and civil rights within a system of laws based on the general will of the governed” (Campbell 26). Nations in turn would need to voluntarily relinquish some of their autonomy and exchange it for security, peace, and general welfare for their citizens. Maybe, nations today are more reluctant to lose power than to lose autonomy, being certain that it would make them stand in a less safe position and probably that is true in the current conditions. Also, the memory of being dominated by the large empires of the past centuries is still relatively fresh for some nations and they are still taking actions to prevent such control from happening again. Therefore, a gradual loosening of interventional fears together with steady, regular small steps taken towards overcoming these barriers should lead the way to finally fulfilling the long lasting ideal institution that is capable of securing international peace. In conclusion, I believe Kant’s eternal peace is attainable but mankind, or at least its leaders, need to work together very hard towards this goal. In a given society, individuals choose – or are forced – to be subjected to laws and institutions because they trade total freedom by the safety that States provide and besides they really can do little against the powerful enforcement mechanisms in place. Thinking concurrently in nations, for them to abide by international regulations, they should believe that the international institutions that implement them will guarantee protection from other countries by having the resources to compel them. Specifically in the interwar period, the world was going through a phase that did not favor the authority of the League of Nations, namely the one international institution created to maintain peace at the time, and thus nations went on searching by themselves what they thought was rightful, and leading straight to World War II. But the League’s failure is just a step in the evolution of global organizations, just as republics and democracies took a long time in the world’s history to be conceived, developed and established, international law was in a growth process and it probably continues to be at current times. At the present times, the European Union could be the better example of an international institution; certainly, it has worked much better than the League of Nations to maintain peace between its members. Even the recent economic struggles have shown the world how complex is to reach common agreement in times of adversity; however, war as a method for handling its differences is just unthinkable, showing this is a step forward in the evolution of international relations. From here, much effort would need to be put on establishing larger institutions and on learning the best mechanisms to coordinate and negotiate between entire nations to eradicate wars in a larger sector in the world but, ultimately, peace can be secured. Works Cited Campbell, Heather M..The Britannica Guide to Political and Social Movements That Changed the Modern World.New York: Britannica Educational Pub., 2010. Print. Ginneken, Anique H. M. Historical Dictionary of the League of Nations. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2006. Print. Fosdick, Raymond B. “The League of Nations as an Instrument of Liberalism” The Atlantic Monthly 126.4 (1920) 553-563 Kant, Immanuel.Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay.New York: Garland Pub., 1972. Print. Levy, Jack S. “The Causes of War: A Review of Theories and Evidence”. Behavior, society, and Nuclear War, vol I. Ed. Philip E Tetlock, Jo L Husbands, Robert Jervis, Paul C Stern, and Carrles Tilly. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. 209-333 . PDF File. Long, David., and Peter Wilson. Thinkers of the Twenty Years Crisis: Inter-war Idealism Reassessed. Oxford: New York: Clarendon Press, 1995. Print. Northedge, F. S.The League of Nations: Its Life and Times, 1920-1946. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986. Schmidt, Brian C. "Lessons from the past: reassessing the interwar disciplinary history of International Relations.” International Studies Quarterly 42.3 (1998): 433-459. Townshead, Charles. “The League of Nations and the United Nations”. BBC History. BBC. 17 Feb 2011. Web. 2 Jan 2013 United Nations Peacekeeping Operations. Principles and Guidelines. New York: United Nations Secretariat, 2008. PDF File. Van Evera, Stephen.Causes of war: Power and the roots of conflict. Cornell University Press, 1999. Waltz, Kenneth N. "Kant, liberalism, and war" The American Political Science Review 56.2 (1962): 331-340 Read More