IN THE AFTERMATH of World War I, much of the world signed on to an organization designed to make it impossible to enter another catastrophic war. It was the League of Nations, an ambitious entity established 100 years ago this month that asked its member states to ensure one another’s security and national interests. But though it came into being after an American president’s call to action, the United States itself was never a member—and the League was destined to fail.
Both the League’s beginnings and its disastrous end began in the depths of World War I, a conflict that pitted nations against one another long after the armistice. In January 1918, President Woodrow Wilson laid out an idealistic 14-point world peace program designed to boost Allied troops’ morale and make war seem untenable for the Central Powers. Wilson blamed secret alliances between nations as the cause of the war, and thought that to maintain a lasting peace, all nations should commit to fewer armaments, reduce trade barriers, and ensure national self-determination. Wilson’s fourteenth point demanded a “general association of nations” to ensure political independence and territorial integrity.
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