The New Diplomacy

In 1914 the countries of Europe were thrust into another violent confrontation. The carnage of World War 1 brought the European system of diplomacy into disrepute. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was the chief critic of the European diplomatic system and the proponent of a new type of open diplomacy and collective security. Wilson’s primary targets were the theory and practice of the balance of power, the distinction between great and small powers, the pursuit of national interests, secret agreements and treaties, and professional diplomats.

In place of the old system Wilson offered a “new diplomacy” in his Fourteen Points. Open Covenants would be drafted in international conferences with great and small countries participating on an equal basis. Peace would be maintained by making national boundaries coincide with ethnic boundaries. All members of the international community would pledge to fight for these boundaries against any nation that used force to change them. Countries would pursue community interests instead of national interests and submit their disputes with one another to international arbitration for peaceful resolution.

Many of Wilson’s ideas were incorporated into the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. After the United States rejected the league and returned to a policy of isolationism, however, the European states reverted to the balance of power system and the pursuit of national interests through professional diplomats.

During World War 2, the president Franklin D. Roosevelt again sought to establish a new type of diplomacy, but he and the British prime minister Winston Churchill built the postwar international order on the basis of agreements with the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that conformed more to the old European system than to the new ideas embodied in the Atlantic Charter and the United Nations. Although the United Nations remains a symbol of what a new system might be, international politics since the end of World War 2 has adhered closely to the European model and has, in part, returned to some of the worst aspects of Renaissance diplomacy.

Answer the questions:

1. What happened to the European system of diplomacy during the WW2?

2. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was the proponent of a new type of open diplomacy. What were the primary targets of this new diplomacy?

3. How would peace be maintained according to this new diplomacy?

4. What interests would countries pursue?

Дата добавления: 2014-12-27