The League of Nations and Collective Security - Article Example

THE FAILURE OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO DELIVER ITS GOAL OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY The League of Nations was set up in 1919 at the end of World War I. The Covenant of the League of Nations was incorporated in the Treaty of Versailles on the insistence of US President Woodrow Wilson who tabled the covenant at the Paris Peace Conference with the words "A living thing is born" (Harney). The League of Nations brought with it a great ray of hope for all the war-weary nations of the world. The League of Nations marked a shift from the traditional 'balance of power' diplomacy to a new diplomacy, which gave greater weightage to the spirit of 'collective security'. It was to be an organization that would use peaceful negotiation to maintain international peace and security. Moreover, it would be an organization where all member states would be bound by the belief that all acts of "aggression and war are crimes against humanity" (Harney), and nations would therefore consider it their duty to desist from and prevent aggression. After any major conflict, prevention of future conflicts is always high on the agenda. To this end, the "favorite technique is to institute measures of co-operation and consultationwith a view to preventing war by moderating and restraining the free-for-all operation of the international anarchy" (Buzan, 163). Thus the setting up of the League of Nations, [and later the United Nations] was a paradigm shift from a policy of national defence to one of collective security. However, the League of Nations failed to achieve its goal of securing international peace and security, amply proven by the fact that the world was at war again within twenty years of its formation. Nevertheless, the failure of League of Nations cannot be called a failure of the idea of collective security. It was more a failure of political will amongst nations to look beyond their own short-term gains in order to make collective security a workable proposition. According to Meg Harney, "While an excellent idea in theory, the League met with repeated problems simply because the nations had not adapted their foreign policy to change to look after, instead of looking after the interests of the League as a whole working unit". The lack of political will among the bigger nations to implement collective security is evident in the stand taken by the big powers vis--vis the League of Nations. The rejection of the Treaty of Versailles by the US and by extension to the League was almost a 'death blow' to the fledging organization. As a result of domestic political compulsions, US President Woodrow Wilson failed to garner the support of the Senate, which according to the US Constitution is the body responsible for ratification of any treaty. The Senate voted against the Treaty and as a result the US did not become a member of the League of Nations. This left Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan as the main powers in the League of Nations. According to Karl Schmidt, "The majority of the British public supported the ideals of the League, but the British government viewed the League largely with indifference". This was largely due to the fact that men like Lloyd George, Stanley Baldwin and Curzon who dominated the government of the day believed in the 'old diplomacy'. Lloyd George preferred, as per Karl Schmidt, "Diplomacy by conference - where the great powers would meet in a less formal setting to discuss problems - to any such system as the League". Apart from this, the British were also affected by the US defection, as they did not want to shoulder the responsibility of single handedly securing the peace in Europe. France supported the League of Nations less for its idealism and more as a tool for securing its own protection. Ever fearful of an attack from Germany, the French leaders saw no difference between its own national security concerns and the League's collective security elements. Italy on the other hand, viewed the League with a certain amount of skepticism, which turned to dislike once Mussolini came to power, primarily as Italy was unhappy over the distribution of the spoils of World War I. Italy lacked resources and had hoped that the League of Nations would ensure a more equitable distribution of resources amongst member nations. However, nations like Canada stepped in and declared the League incompetent in the regard. Thus began Italy's disenchantment with the League. Japan too was disappointed with the Covenant of the League to start with. At the Paris Peace Conference, Japan has suggested that a clause be added to the Covenant's preamble stating that all member countries agree to just and equal treatment to the nationals of all countries. The US, New Zealand and Australia wasted no time in rejecting this idea, as they feared it might interfere with the restrictions they had imposed on Japanese immigration. Japan turned hostile to the League once the militarists assumed power in 1930. Thus all the countries who had been instrumental in forming the League were themselves not committed to its success. This, in spite of the fact that, "The League of Nations was the embodiment of collective security[providing]a mechanism for coping with war and social injustice" (Kegley and Wittkopf, 21), and therefore should have been welcomed by all. The League of Nations was based on the, "assumption that peace-loving countries could collectively deter - and if necessary, counteract - aggression. Instead of accepting war as a legitimate instrument of national policy, collective security advocates sought to inhibit war through the threat of collective action" (Kegley and Wittkopf, 451-2). In essence, collective security will occur when "a group of states attempts to reduce security threats by agreeing o collectively punish any member state that violates the system's norms" (Downs 1994, qt. by Kegley and Wittkopf, 452). Most powers endorsed the idea of collective security but failed to put up any collective resistance against acts of aggression committed by the Axis powers in the years between the two World Wars. As with previous treaties, the League could not prevail because, " the strength of the forces dividing the international system has easily exceeded the strength of those tending to unite it" (Buzan, 169). When World War II broke out, it rang a death knell for the League of Nations and the idea of collective security was discredited. The events of the inter-war period clearly show a lack of political will on the part of the big powers to stand up for collective security. Some of the most telling events were the Japanese attack on Manchuria in 1931, Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and Germany's encroachment in Czechoslovakia and other European countries. The Japanese example typifies this lack of political will. In 1931, a clash took place between Chinese and Japanese troops at Mukden, a small railway station in Manchuria. Japan, which had always coveted the rich province of Manchuria took advantage of the situation and sent troops to Manchuria, the Chinese put up a resistance but to no avail. The Chinese representative in Geneva appealed to the League Council for help. The League Council, confused by conflicting reports, asked the countries to sort out the matter by themselves. Meanwhile, the Japanese continued to advance and the situation in Manchuria worsened. Finally, more than three months after the crisis, the League appointed a commission to study the problem the Commission submitted a report that Japan had violated the Covenant. The Assembly of the League of Nations voted to adopt it, which Japan responded to by simply walking out of the league. The failure of the League of Nations to handle the Manchurian crisis was not lost upon the two revisionists powers in Europe, namely, Germany and Italy. Germany's policy of re-armament, a direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles drew only mild protests from France and Great Britain. Mussolini was quick to grasp that these two countries were ready to appease him in order to keep him from allying with Hitler. Emboldened by this knowledge, he readied to realize his ambitions in Abbysinia. In a bid to redeem Italy's past glory, Mussolini prepared to mount a full-scale military attack citing a small clash between Italians and Ethiopian soldiers as the reason. The Abbyssinian Emperor, Haile Selassie appealed to the League for help but the League dilly-dallied, as France and Great Britain were unwilling to alienate Mussolini. So while Italy's actions were condemned on the floor of the League, France and Great Britain sough to appease it outside the League, reflecting the, 'tendency to voice approval of the value of general peace but unwilling to organize resistance except when their own security was threatened" (Kegley and Wittkopf, 496). When matters came to a head, the League responded by imposing sanctions on Italy, but none of the big powers, many of whom were supplying war material to Italy were willing to forego their self-interest and enforce the sanctions. Collective security failed yet again. Germany under Adolf Hitler, "rejected all norms of international law and international institutions like the League of Nations, and traditional international economic arrangements"(Holsti, 260). Furthermore, "The dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, demanded by Hitler and accepted by the British, French and Italians, seemed a small price to pay for maintaining the peace of Europe and avoiding another military catastrophe of World War I dimensions"(Holsti, 317). In 1933, Germany withdrew from the League of Nations, as did Italy in 1937, the League of its own accord expelled the Soviet Union over its invasion of Finland in 1939. War clouds had started gathering over Europe again. Although the lack of political will on the part of member nations to uphold collective security proved to be a nail in the coffin of the League of Nations, one cannot totally overlook some of the structural defects in the League. Most importantly was its inability to intercede when, "action had to be taken against the aggressions of the major powers"(Holsti, 349). The theory of collective security assumed that a state would be as ready to protect others as it was to protect itself, but could failed to take into account conflicting national interests. It is a well-known fact that bigger, more powerful countries are more likely to resort to the use of force than smaller ones, for whom the outcome of a war is uncertain. This combined with the fact that the League was not empowered enough to enforce its decisions [especially on the bigger powers] were also factors that contributed to the ultimate demise of the League of Nations. Works Cited Buzan, "People, State and Fear", 1987, harvester Press, Sussex, England. Harney Meg, Ineffectiveness in Action: The Failure of the League of Nations. Retrieved from http://members.aol.com/megxyz/meg.html Holsti, KJ, "International Politics: A Framework for Analysis", 7th Edition 1995, Prentice-Hall, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., USA. Kegley, Charles W., Jr, and Wittkopf, Eugene R, "World Politics: Trends and Transformations", 6th Edition 1997, St Martin's Press, New York. Schmidt, Karl J, The League of Nations. Retrieved from http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/E/league/leaguexx.htm Read More