History Research Assignment
“Compare and contrast the factors that helped and hindered attempts at
collective security in the ten years after each world war.”
At the end of both World Wars, countries gather together in a hope to establish world
peace and ensure that another war would not start again. This was usually done
through peace conferences, treaties, or the formation of international organisations
to introduce and sustain collective security in countries. Collective security is an
approach to peace involving an agreement by which states agree to take
collective action against any state defined as an aggressor. However, these factors
might not have necessarily helped at collective security, but rather hindered attempts
at it, and this is a similarity between both wars, whereby some of the factors
hindered more than helped at collective security after both world wars. However, it
could be agreed that most factors after WW2 in attempting at collective security were
more effective compared to those in WW1, as those factors after WW1 eventually
led to WW2, which was due to the failure in collective security, while the aftermath of
WW2 saw the start of Cold War, which was mainly due to ideological differences.
As the failure of the League of Nations (LON) in resolving conflicts between
countries hindered attempts at collective security after WW1, the failure of the United
Nations (UN) in resolving the Cold War also hindered attempts at collective security
after WW2.
After WW1, the LON was created & dominated by a council which was controlled by
victor nations such as Britain and France. It was designed to enforce the Treaty of
Versailles and the other peace agreements that concluded WWI. However, it failed
to include the USA and Soviet Union. With the failure of including the strongest and
most influential country in the world at that point in time, this caused countries not to
feel threatened by the LON, since they knew that no significant consequences would
result if they decided to invade any country. One example of the failure of the LON’s
attempt at collective security is the Manchurian crisis in September 1931, when
Japan occupied part of China. After the invasion, members in LON passed a
resolution calling for Japan to withdraw. Given that all countries in the LON had veto
power, Japan, being a member of the LON, promptly vetoed the resolution, severely
limiting the ability of the LON to respond. After 2 years of deliberation, the League
passed a resolution condemning the invasion without committing the League’s
members to any action against it. Japan thus replied by quitting the League of
Nations. A similar process occurred in 1935, when Italy invaded Ethiopia. Sanctions
were passed, but Italy vetoed any stronger resolution. Thus, there was no serious
sanctions against the Italian government. Hence, the failure of the LON hindered
attempts at collective security as it was unable to respond to crises created by the
members themselves.
Similarly, the failure of the UN in preventing a Cold War was one of the major factors
which hindered collective security as USA and USSR were constantly fighting to gain
the upper hand on spreading their influence of ideology to the European countries.
Although USA and USSR were both in the UN, their ideological differences caused
them to build their weapons against each other and start the Cold War, which lasted
from 1947 all the way to 1991. Most of the world was divided into two blocs. Winston
Churchill, the British Prime Minister, in his Iron Curtain Speech stated that an iron
curtain had fallen across Eastern and Western Europe which was controlled by the
Soviet Union and the USA. This was followed by the Truman Doctrine, which was
USA’s policy to prevent Communism from spreading. President Truman offered help
to any country that was under military threat, in the hope that this would stop
Communism from spreading. Though they did not directly fight each other, they used
other countries to establish their ideology in the countries, such as the Korean war
from 1950 to 1953, and Vietnam war from 1955 to 1975. Therefore, both wars are
similar as they saw the failure of the peacekeeping organisations in preventing
further conflicts as factors that hindered attempts at collective security after the war.
While WW1 saw a period of economic weakness as being one of the factors that
hindered attempts at collective security, WW2 was different as countries were more
experienced in handling economic situations, which could be said to help attempts at
collective security 10 years after the war.
The aftermath of WW1 saw the whole of Europe suffering a long period of economic
weakness that culminated in the 1929 Great Depression. Many countries suffered
from heavy military spending during the war, as well as increased borrowings or
inflationary printing of money. Britain and France owed huge sums to the US; they
spent up to half of their total expenditure on debt servicing. Similarly, the Central
Powers such as Germany’s inflationary printing wrecked their economies. Strong
efforts were used to destroy the German economy using reparations via the Treaty
of Versailles, like the $6.6 billion she was supposed to pay back to the victor nations.
Due to economic instability, protectionism was deeply rooted in Europe and these
severely hindered efforts to promote an integrated world economy as well as
collective security, since countries were too preoccupied with their own financial
issues to care about helping other countries, which would have reduced the
possibility of another world war.
However, unlike after WW1, the Western Europe recovered quickly after WW2.
Aided by the fact that the US did not repeat the mistake of making big loans to the
Western allies and instead used the Lend Lease programme where there was no
charge for the supplies provided, they were better in managing their financial issues
and did not have to struggle paying back USA after the war. The main stimulus of
recovery was the Marshall Plan. It was an American initiative to aid Western Europe,
in which the United States gave over $13 billion in economic assistance to help
rebuild Western European economies after the end of WW2. As a result, this led to
unprecedented period of Western European prosperity. In addition, the US promoted
the move towards an integrated global economy based on free trade principles. They
created the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on
Trade and Tariffs. These did see a general rise in prosperity especially in what would
be known as the First World countries. Therefore, the financial aid contributed mainly
by the US could be seen to help in the attempts of collective security after WW2 in
the long run, as Western Europe was able to unite together and work together to
prevent further spread of Communism.
Lastly, while the policy of Appeasement after WW1 could be a hindrance in
attempting at collective security, war preventive organisations such as the NATO
created after WW2 was different as it helped countries in Europe to look over their
own borders and take part in collective security more willingly.
After WW1, Chamberlain of Britain considered the TOV unfair especially to
Germany, thus creating the policy of appeasement for Hitler. The failure of the LON
in establishing collective security was also another reason for Chamberlain to issue
appeasement for Hitler. Following the Abyssinia crisis in 1935, it was clear that
collective security as a means of stopping aggression was dead. This meant that
Britain and France had no choice but to meet the increasing demands of Hitler
through a new policy, appeasement. Thus, when Hitler forced Anschluss with
Austria, Britain did not take any action, hence Hitler continued and invaded the
Sudetenland, the rest of Czechoslovakia and eventually Poland in September 1939,
which caused WW2. The ‘orthodox’ view after WW2 also blamed Chamberlain for
failing to challenge Hitler earlier, arguing that he played an important role in bringing
about WW2. A version of this view was given by A.J.P. Taylor in 1961, when he
argued that Hitler was an opportunistic statesman rather than a ‘clear planner’ in
foreign policy, which meant that appeasing him simply encouraged him to be bolder
in seizing new opportunities to expand. Hence, through appeasement, this further
hindered attempts at collective security, as countries, especially Britain, were not
keen in collective security to fight off Hitler and allowed him to become more powerhungry. Had Britain not adopt the appeasement policy and instead encouraged
collective security, this would have deterred German from making any expansionist
moves which would have prevented another world war.
However, after WW2, countries started to become more open minded about the
concept of collective security and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),
was set up in 4 April 1949. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 was crucial
for NATO as it raised the apparent threat of all Communist countries working
together and forced the alliance to develop concrete military plans. In September
1950, the NATO Military Committee called for an ambitious build-up of conventional
forces to face the Soviets. In September 1952, the first major NATO maritime
exercises began, such as Exercise Mainbrace, where it brought together 200 ships
and over 50,000 personnel to practice the defence of Denmark and Norway.
Subsequently, other major exercises followed, including Exercise Grand Repulse,
which involved the British Army on the Rhine, Netherlands Corps and Allied Air
Forces, and Exercise Weldfast, an amphibious landing exercise in the Mediterranean
Sea involving American, British, Greek, Italian and Turkish naval forces. It could be
seen that it was due to the Cold War that woke the countries about the threat of
Communism and take part in collective security, however, if it were not for the
NATO, collective security in countries would not have happened, thus it could be
said the formation of the NATO helped in attempts at collective security after WW2.
In conclusion, factors after both world wars hindered attempts at collective security
such as the LON after WW1 and UN after WW2. However, countries after the
Second World War were more prepared financially as compared to WW1 as there
was no significant inflations in countries after WW2, which meant it need not be
preoccupied with its economy to neglect collective security like they did after WW1.
Another factor which helped in collective security after WW2 was the formation of the
NATO, where countries in Western Europe took part in the collective security
exercises and contributed to deter the Soviets from spreading Communism to
Western Europe. Therefore, factors in WW2, except for the UN, were considered
helpful in the attempt at collective security compared to WW1.
(1598 words)
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