Page 194 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

international organizations—overview 1013

arrangement, whereby parties agree to come to each tive security system. In any case, the Concert was not ter-
other’s aid if attacked by third parties, or offensive, an ribly successful. By the mid-1820s it had ceased having
agreement to attack a third party. Either way, a key fea- a major impact on European politics, and by the middle
ture of an alliance is that it is exclusive, meaning that it of the nineteenth century had ceased to exist altogether.
is designed specifically to work against the interests of The next major international attempt at collective secu-
nonmembers. International alliances have been around rity was the League of Nations, created in the aftermath
for millennia; they are, for example, featured promi- of World War I.The League was clearly an international
nently in Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian organization; it had its headquarters in Geneva, Switzer-
War in the fifth century BCE. But they have traditionally land, with a permanent Secretariat—its own bureau-
not been organizations as such.They have made agree- cracy.The creation of the League was driven primarily by
ments, but those agreements have generally not created the U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, who felt that a pri-
new special-purpose bureaucracies. The alliance as an mary cause ofWorldWar I had been the politics of secret
international organization is a phenomenon of the sec- alliances that dominated European international rela-
ond half of the twentieth century, beginning with the tions for half a century before the war. He wanted to cre-
creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ate an organization that brought countries together to
(NATO) and the Warsaw Pact. discuss their problems in a public forum, thereby getting
Collective security organizations differ from alliances rid of closed-door international negotiations. He also
in that they are inclusive. Such organizations create rules wanted to create an organization that guaranteed the
for maintaining the international peace and hold their peace, thus getting rid of the need for alliances.
members to those rules. If a member country breaks the The League, like the Concert, was not very successful.
rules in a way that is a threat to international peace, then It was hamstrung from the outset by the fact that the
all of the other members are supposed to take action to United States never joined. Despite the fact that Presi-
counteract the threat. In other words, while alliances aim dent Wilson was the driving force behind its creation,
to defend their members from threats from outside of the U.S. Senate did not ratify U.S. membership in the
their membership, collective security agreements aim to organization. It was also undermined by its own
defend their members from threats that originate within decision-making structure. The League worked on a
the membership. As such, collective security organiza- one-country, one-vote basis, so a group of small, mili-
tions work best the broader their membership.The U.N. tarily weak countries that constituted a majority could
was formed primarily as a collective security organiza- pass a resolution calling for military action even if the
tion, and the U.N.’s Security Council was designed as its countries voting for the resolution were not strong
primary enforcement mechanism. enough collectively to enforce it. Since the League itself
had no military capabilities, it counted on member
A History of Collective countries to enforce its resolutions, and those members
Security tended to resort to pass-the-buck arguments—they
The first attempt at a collective security agreement in the might want something done, but they wanted some
modern state system was the Concert of Europe, an other country to actually do it.
agreement reached in the aftermath of the Napoleonic The League did not survive World War II. It was
Wars by the great powers of the time to manage Euro- replaced by the U.N., which was created in 1945. The
pean affairs through annual meetings rather than through U.N. undertakes a wide range of activities that cover
alliances and wars. This agreement did not really create most areas of human endeavor, but its core design func-
an international organization, however, because it did not tion is as a collective security organization. It began with
create a new bureaucratic structure to oversee the collec- two advantages over the League of Nations. First, all of