I
Collective Security
Does Not Work
February 5, 2013
The League of Nations was found to serve as a collective
security system.
Author: Daisy Oliver
British Middle East Center for Studies & Research
Copyright © 2012, British Middle-East Center for Studies & Research, All rights reserved
II
The League of Nations was found to serve as a collective security system, which is defined to be a
system of international peace. Examining the present replacement of the League (The UN),
illustrates that the former had not failed because of historically-specific reasons such as the lack of
potent military power and the absence of major powers but its tenants are impractical at all times.
Surprisingly, its impracticality derives from the very same circumstances which absence in the
former system was believed to be responsible for its former, the military power and major
powers.
February 5, 2013
The aftermath of four years of bloodshed during the First World War was not limited to the loss of
land, resources and man; it also resulted in a peace-demanding political consciousness amongst both
the public and policy makers of the early 20 th century. President Woodrow Wilson of the United
States was often portrayed as the father of the first international body concerned with resolving
conflicts peacefully and preventing future armed catastrophes, the League of Nations. The last of his
famous 14-point speech outlining the United States war aims discussed the need to create a 'general
association of Nations [that] must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording
mutual guarantees of political independence & territorial integrity to great and small states alike'
(Ellis, 1929, p. 72) and initiated the establishment of such international body. It is widely known that
the 'League's span of life was short & troubled, its success transitory & end inglorious' (Walters,
1952) for it only lasted 27 years between 1919 till 1947 succeeded by a Second War World that
made its failure an undisputable fact. What is disputable, however-to this very day- is whether the
historic context of the early 20th century and the circumstances that were limited to its time
dimension are the sole reasons responsible for bringing a disgraceful end to the League of Nations or
whether collective security in any of its forms, the League in the past and the United Nations in the
present are destined to fail regardless due to the implausibility of its principles.
For peace to be established on an international scale, the consequences of disturbing it must prove
to be tragic for any aggressor, therefore, the absence of such consequences was directly responsible
for the failure of the League of Nations as it was not able to take necessary military actions to
prevent acts of aggression by powerful states. The League had lacked a military force of its own and
was dependent on that of major powers, which perhaps was not quite problematic during the first
decade of its existence because it did settle over 30 disputes successfully at that time. However, the
great tests of the League's ability to settle disputes involving major powers began in 1931 (Bennett,
1977, p. 35) following the Japanese attacks in Manchuria, Italy's conquest of Ethiopia and Hitler's
large-scale aggression which were all addressed poorly and ineffectively. When a state interferes to
put an end to its own nationals acts of violence it faces no risk of retaliation because it is capable of
oppressing any fight-backs effortlessly, however, internationally this is not the case as consequences
can be severe and catastrophic. That explains the reluctance of states in possession of strong
military forces to take actions against other states possessing equivalent or more power; prevention
of exposing one's self to retaliation of mighty aggressors that are by no means easily recoverable.
Not only was this reluctance due to the high risks involved with military interference but also the
lack of incentive to endure them for the sake of protecting other states with whom no interests are
existent. The failure of the system to operate in this period, therefore, was not so much the failure
of the system to operate successfully as its failure to be militarily established (Claude, 1962, p. 155).
In addition to being a toothless organization military-wise, the League of Nation was also toothless
member-wise as the major powers were not part of it, especially the United States. President Wilson
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February 5, 2013
played a transcended role in promoting the League idea; it was contradictory that the US defected
from League membership. Although a majority of the members of US Senate favored membership,
the opponents, led by Senator Lodge, used the devise of burdening the treaty with reservations to
prevent the required two-thirds approval (Bennett, 1977, p. 26). For this reason, the original idea of
the Paris Peace Conference was never established as the only country that had a strong international
position after the First World War notably because its military capabilities did not deteriorate nor did
its wealth decrease was not part of the League. What is more, after years of isolation, Germany
made a move towards a recognizable international status by becoming a member of the league in
1926, however, Hitler's announced the withdrawal of Germany in 1933 after the Disarmament
Conference because it did not suit his expansionary ambitions (Browne, 1969, p. 47). In addition to
the loss of two superpowers, there was also the Soviet Union that was excluded from participation
due to its communist ideology which imposed a threat on the western powers of the League and
isolated it from the international community. The Fatal sum of losses the League of Nations had to
endure from the United States refusal to join, Germany's withdrawal and the Soviet Union exclusion
was the most influential historical element responsible for its failure. However, the current collective
security system known as the United Nation that replaced the League has well-avoided those
historically-specific circumstances that declared the League unsuccessful, but is still not operating up
to its potential even though it enjoys relative success in resolving arising conflicts for various
reasons.
By assuming that the failure of collective security resulting from the failure of the League of Nations
was due to unpleasing historic circumstances, we also assume that by overcoming those
circumstances, collective security can function properly. Therefore, if the absence of the major
powers led to the failure of the League, does their prominent role aided by the veto right in the
United Nations pacify the international community? It is important to note that the adoption of the
veto reflected the assumption that the great powers would maintain peaceful and harmonious
relationships making the use of the veto highly unlikely (Claude, 1962, p. 158). However, as the
assumption of superpowers peace-maintaining relationships with other states is questioned, so was
the outcome of collective security especially upon the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC 'the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that
contravened the UN charter' (BBC, 2004) but not much if anything at all was done against their
unilateralism because the League of Nation experience proved that collective security fails to
operate against superpowers, hence, are given the privilege of peace-guardian positions provided
their impartiality. Thus, because nothing can be done to the acts of aggression by the powerful five,
the success of collective security becomes limited and unjust to an extent. This injustice although
cannot be generalized on all UN resolutions, it can still be seen in some important modern cases that
brought into the attention of the international community that when there is disunity in decisionmaking among the powerful states, outcomes can be catastrophic, which most recently seen the
Syrian conflict. Indeed, while 3 out of the prominent 5 members voted in favour of economic
sanctions on President Assad who is responsible for the murder of over 30,000 Syrians, Russia and
China voted against the resolution hindering the pacification process (NY Times, 2012) and allowing
the kill-count to rise further.
Collective security purported to liberate weak states from the uncertainty of their fates; a difficulty
they had to face in the balance of power system in which small states were either protected or
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February 5, 2013
targeted as their fate was 'dependent upon the convenience, the calculations of self-interest, of the
major participants' (Claude, 1962, p. 113). Thomas Hobbes argued similarly, he sees the
commonality of individual state's circumstances-insecurity that is- does not produce self-enforcing
arrangements but rather calls for external enforcements despite their common interest in 'personal'
security (Downs, 1994, p. 114). The League of Nations, and similarly the United of Nations were
established to provide those external enforcements that satisfy the common interest of both
powerful and weak states alike. But just how homogenous those interests are determines the extent
to which the collective security can operate successfully. The UN and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) both resemble collective security organizations but the differed structure of
these organizations illustrates how the similarity of their collective interests is reflected in their
collective security performance. While the UN consists of members with different political,
economic, cultural, religious and geographic characteristics, the NATO consists of states that share
most if not all of those characteristics plus the privilege of including all western superpowers as
prominent members. Not surprisingly, the NATO members' security not once has been challenged,
whereas UN weaker member-states have frequently faced political unrests with no potent
interventions from the UN as was the case with the Rwandan genocide in 1994 that could have been
prevented or at least ended with minimal losses if 5000 troops were deployed (Foreign Affairs, 2000)
but were not as no incentive was there for powerful states to help a country with whom no interests
are found.
When the League of Nation was created, it was predicted that collective security would succeed
because it would operate under certain assumptions. In addition to the assumption that members
will not hesitate to stop acts extreme acts of aggression militarily regardless of their personal
position on the conflict and that maximization of personal security would act as an incentive to
develop collective interests that would empower the League, it was also assumed that resolutions
leading to intervention/prevention would be centralized in the international body responsible for
collective security. Just as the first two assumptions were countered from the realist approach that
power maximization is a strong determinant of a country's behavior and that collective security
cannot be achieved without collective interests, the latter can also be approached from the realist
theory of international anarchy. In his Theory of International Politics, Kenneth Waltz argues that
sovereignty exists within different states boundaries, but the international system is one of anarchy
due to the absence of sovereign international police (Shimko, 2007, p. 69). As collective security
systems, the League of Nations and The United Nations are founded to act as centralized
international police and thus end anarchy between states. It seems however, that the international
security system is gradually turning into a decentralized system, basically reverting to its anarchic
position of the twentieth century (Lang, 2006, p. 16). Examples of such decentralized unauthorized
actions include the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group's (ECOMOG)
intervention in Liberia which was conducted without Security Council authorization, NATO's
unauthorized intervention is Kosovo and as previously illustrated; Iraq's unilateral invasion in 2003
(Lang, 2006, p. 16). Therefore, as international security shifts away from the centralized body so
shifts its practices from 'collectivism' to 'individualism'.
In conclusion, historically-specific unfavorable circumstances proved inculpable of being solely
accountable for the failure of the League of Nations. This is because the prominent role of the USA in
the revised collective security system of the UN in contrary to the League of Nations aided by the
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Copyright © 2012, British Middle-East Center for Studies & Research, All rights reserved
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February 5, 2013
veto right led to well-observed unitarily of superpowers' actions. Similarly, overcoming the League's
problem of weak military capabilities did not provide collective security the right 'set of teeth' to
stop aggression as it is susceptible to both selectivity of interventions resulting from self-interests
and increasing decentralization. Therefore, replacing a failed international security system with
another revised system does not necessarily prevents failure to resolve large-scale conflicts as its
success remains bounded by the nature of parties involved in the conflict and interests gained to
superpowers from intervening.
British Middle East Center for Studies & Research
Copyright © 2012, British Middle-East Center for Studies & Research, All rights reserved