Multinational self‐determination

Abstract

Even as Woodrow Wilson began to envision a world justice system, with peace as a legal concept, to replace the outdated conventions of the balance of power between nations, the architect himself sought coercive means to mobilize the transition. The times, more than the man, demanded new thinking in matters of international relations, and Wilson himself could rarely reconcile his own political actions with the new legalistic moral ideals. Henry Kissinger explains Wilsonian sentiments of 1917 as follows: America disdained the concept of the balance of power and considered the practice of Realpolitik immoral. America's criteria for international order were democracy, collective security, and self‐determination—none of which had undergirded any previous European settlement. To Americans, the dissonance between their philosophy and European thought underlined the merit of their beliefs. Proclaiming a radical departure from the precepts and experiences of the Old World, Wilson's idea of world order derived from American's faith in the essentially peaceful nature of man and an underlying harmony of the world. It followed that democratic nations were, by definition, peaceful; people granted self‐determination would no longer have reason to go to war or to oppress others. Once all peoples of the world had tasted of the blessings of peace and democracy, they would surely rise as one to defend their gains. But in attempting to implement his new policy Wilson declared, “When the war is over we can force them to our way of thinking, because by that time they will, among other things, be financially in our hands.” Once it was apparent that U.S. participation in the new system was crucial to European approval, Wilson, oddly enough, used the Monroe Doctrine to bolster American support, stating: I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any other nation or people ... that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which would draw them into competitions of power ...