The League of Nations - Essay Example

LON failed and lost all its power when as a result of the withdrawal of the member countries, it was left with minimal armed forces that were not enough to help it in making the countries comply with the sanctions proposed by the league. The league came into being to control the aggressiveness practiced by some countries through measures of arms control, settlement, and negotiation. LON had no armed forces of its own, owing to which it failed in threatening the aggressive nations with military might and simply failed to enforce its resolutions designed to maintain world peace and World War II initiated.

Literature review:

            According to a research study done by (Buchanan), LON had no other means of making the defiant state abide by its decisions than by introducing economic sanctions on that state. For example, when LON verbally threatened Germany to not violate the rules of the treaty flagrantly and stop moving troops into Rhineland, Germany walked out of the League and gave up membership. The only option left for LON was to make other countries stop trading with Germany and none of the other member states were interested in getting involved in disputes. If the oppression continued despite the imposition of economic sanctions, LON could use military forces against the defiant state to end the war. The great irony is that no member country was under obligation to provide military power to the League when joining it, in contrast to the policy of the current United Nations. Military help could have been expected from Britain and France, but both countries were brutally shaken economically and financially during World War I and so, they were not in a position to finance the League in carrying out military invasion on any offensive state. Russia was not allowed to join the League and it was a great economic power at that time, which could have immensely helped the League in terms of enforcement of decisions using military might. Germany was not allowed because it had initiated WWI and Russia was abandoned from joining the League because of the communist government that generated waves of threat in Europe.

Methodology

            I shall have the questionnaires distributed online to the eminent foreign ministers of all the countries that were once members of LON, in tow their opinions about the failure of the League and how much those opinions comply with my research topic. I shall conduct comparative research based on results received from those participants of my research analysis who would agree with my reason and those who would present other reasons for Leagfor’s failure. I shall collect data and statistics and shall organize them in charts and tables.

Results as Predicted

            I predict that the results will prove to be useful in giving an exact idea about what factors particularly contributed to the finishing of the League. Myriad opinions of the participants of my research study will help in forming a rich repertoire of factors long forgotten and heavily related to the failure of LON.