Collective Security

 Why did collective security fail to keep the peace between 1920 and 1935?

• What was the League of nations intended to do?

• League of Nations intended to preserve the peace between countries by acting collectively to enforce the rules and place economic sanctions on any nation that went against them
• Group pressure was placed on a country to force them to back down and decisions were made as a group to decide when enforcement was necessary

Thesis:  Collective Security failed to preserve peace between 1920 and 1935 because the basic structure of the League was flawed, major nations never joined the League of Nations, and transgressors were not punished justly.

Structural Issues:

-Unanimity was required for decisions in the assembly; this ensured that quick decisions would almost never happen in times of crisis

-System relied on the "goodwill of the nations" when the very League was founded because of the lack of goodwill between them

-Expecting everyone to want the same thing for the world

-In a perfect world the setup may have worked, but when countries are looking out for their own interests, the peace between nations far from them would become less important 

-Military sanctions never happened because no nation was willing to put their military under international control

• Covenant was ambiguous as to when forces should be used
• Military Aggression was a last resort; after all else was tried (appeasement)

-The Great Depression consumed countries with their own domestic affairs and they had little time to worry about international disputes

Absence of Major Powers:

-USA was not present in the League

-Being the major economic power, they would have put a lot of weight behind the League's threat of economic sanctions

-Almost all of the members of the League were European, which failed to give it a world-wide feel and there were only limited viewpoints as a result

-Germany was excluded, making the main powers of the League the victorious allies of WWI

-Seemed unfair to exclude countries that could have given hindsight and helped make the future better rather then make increase their contempt

-There were many smaller states that lacked a stable center, and although part of the League, could not offer much support

-USA never joined the League of Nations because Congress was afraid it would draw them into more conflicts then they desired

-USA went into Isolationism

-Overall, the League lacked credibility and was less of a threat in the eyes of transgressors

Failure to resolve international crises:

-The League failed to address several crisis, intending to offer assistence, but was never quite able to summon a punishment against the rule breaker

-Once other countries see that the League failed to enforce its own rules, they feel more confident in breaking rules and the cycle continues

-Countries think they can walk all over the League because they have set a reputation for failing to enforce

Manchurian Crisis:

-Japan invaded China to increase their expand their empire-China asked for help from the League of Nations (one member attacking another) and an investigation was started that took a year to complete-Japan was found guilty and was asked to retreat but they never did and ultimately left the League of Nations -League was unwilling to provide economic sanctions because of the Depression-Only Britain had the naval capability to go after Japan, but they didn't want to risk losing-In the end it was tolerated and the League lost credibility for failing to deal with a situation, making them look weak