Tez 3

Security Commitments to Europe

Wilson's vision of the League of Nations was of an association of democracies that would provide mechanisms for conflict resolution and mutual security obligations.

Members of the league would make commitmetns to guarantee peace. But the underlying commitment at the heart of the league's collective security structure would not reassure two divergent(aykırı) constituencies(seçmenler):

- the guarantees were too vague(belirsiz) and uncertain to satisfy french concerns about its security.

At the paris conference two proposals were discussed:

1- France wanted an alliance of the allied states, with an international army and a combined general staff (an alliance of the victors). It would entail(gerektirmek) an ambitious supranational organization that would provide almost absolute security guarantees. in many ways it was resembling (benzeyen) the later NATO alliance.

2- the other proposal was Wilson's league;
-It includes membership of all states.
-Withour a formal supranational organization, but with a elaborate(detaylı) set of explicit(açık) obligations ,expectations and enforcement mechanism.
-It would be a concert of the Europe with the leadership of the major states
-Covenant bound(bağlamak) its member to an alliance of nonagression, and created machinery for international cooperation, and for the preventing of war.

The league includes:
-a parliament (all members would be represented)
-an executive branch (a permanent court of international justice)
-a secretariat
- and various commissions to oversee (gözetmek) specific treaties or to foster (teşvik) cooperation in social and economic areas.

Wilson argues that the binding character of the league would need to grow over time reflecting a gradual(aşamalı) deepening(derinleşen) of commitments by countries to a set of commonly embraced( kucakladı) postwar princibles.


It seems clear that Wilson wanted league with sufficient guarantees of response to aggression as to deter(caydırmak) such aggression in te first place. The goal was to make the obligations as compelling(zorunlu) as possible , but leave the commitment to the collective use of force to resist aggression just short of bindign or absolute.

As Arthur Link argues, Wilson believed that the league of nations would not come into full force immediately.

If democracy within countries required a maturation process , as Wilson thought it did, the development of law and rights between nations also did. As Wilson indicated in a note to Colonel House in March 1918 " the League must grow and not to be made"

Conclusion

The United States did pursue(kovaladı) an institutional order-building strategy after the war.
to reach an institutional bargain(pazarlık) that would lock other states into a congenial(kafa dengi) international order.

This was at the heart of Wilson's liberal program:
-to creat a stable and legitimate postwar order orgonized around democratic countries that operate within liberal institutions and uphold (tarafında) collective security.

The oportunity in the post war conjuncture led Wilson to articulate (belirtmek) long-term American interest that would be secured through the establishment of institutionalized relationships among the democracies.

Britain and France did worry about American domination and abandonment.

The British:
-used their own support of the League of Nations as a mechanism to shape the American commitment,
whereas
The French:
-pursued(takip) a more formal security alliance.

But why did an institutional bargain fail?

reason lie both inside and outside the constitutional model.
-If a security alliance between the United States and Europe was the only way to built a stable order, a foucs on stubborn and divergent great power interests is perhaps sufficient to explain the outcome.

France wanted more security guaranatee than the US is able to do.
The distribution of power or the presence (varlık) or absence (yokluk) of democratic states are less useful in explaining the failure of this alliance agreement.

It was an institutional settlement that would have tied the major states together more closely than the 1815 settlement.
It was less formally binding than the security ties emerged between the US and Europe after WW II



Britain in 1915 and US in 1945 more fully used their leadership of the wartime to lock in agreement.

Wilson's actions depanded on a basic assumption about an expected worldwide democratic revolution.

The war brought the US to a NEw position of power, but the way the war ended and Wİlson's lost opportunities left the US unable to dictate the terms of the peace.
Wilsons own conceptions of commitment and global historical change undercut (alttan vurma) an institutional agreement that was within his reach.