U.S. Foreig Policy The First Term Paper

Thirdly, the approach Woodrow Wilson had put forward at the Peace Conference was based on the mutual agreement between the states of the world to avoid any military confrontation in the future. The final point which demanded for the creation of a world body to guarantee "political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike" would have implied certain equality between the parts of this Pact. The actual situation on the ground however could not have supported such a claim because the states present in Paris were split between winners and losers of the war and automatically between countries that were satisfied with the status quo the war had established and the ones that were unsatisfied with the post war situation. Part of the first category, France and Britain, as well as the U.S. tried to keep to the results the armed conflict had reached, while Russia and Germany were determined to reshape the map of Europe and reclaim their initial position in the world. From this perspective, it was rather difficult to consider consensus and agreement between major powers that had divergent opinions over the future of Europe and the world. (Kissinger, 1994)

Aside from the external factors which played their part in the lack of feasibility of the Wilson Plan for peace, there were also internal issues that prevented the U.S. To actually subscribe to the idea of the League of Nations. Despite the fact that it had been an American initiative, the League was crippled of its main supporter and force, the United States. In this situation Wilson failed to attract the support of the national forces for such a plan, the framework for the organization being rejected in the American...

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The main argument for this refusal was the incompatibility of the actions the League would take and the U.S.' sovereignty over its foreign affairs decisions. Therefore, the Senate found it unacceptable for the country, at one point, to be forced to concede to decisions taken by other nations inside the League. Following this argument, the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles. Also, Wilson had a poor support in the U.S., seeing that he had channeled all his energy to promote this act in Europe and less in his own country. In this sense, the republicans were all the more reluctant to offer their support to the president. (Schulzinger, 1998) Therefore, the plan, despite its idealistic goals, did not benefit from the support of the political forces in the U.S.
Overall, it can be concluded that although the post war situation demanded for a change in the way politics had to be conducted, Woodrow Wilson's plan envisaged in his famous Fourteen Points did not take into consideration the political factors, both external and internal, that would take their toll on the implementation of his idealistic idea.

Bibliography

Berstein, Serge, and Milza. Pierre. Histoire de l'Europe. Paris: Hatier, 1994

Brigham Young University Library. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. 1996. Accessed 2 August, 2007 at http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/1918/14points.html

Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. London: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Schlesinger, Stephen. Act of Creation. The Founding of the United Nations. Colorado: Westview, 2003

Schulzinger, Robert D.U.S. Diplomacy since 1900. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998

Sources Used in Documents:

Bibliography

Berstein, Serge, and Milza. Pierre. Histoire de l'Europe. Paris: Hatier, 1994

Brigham Young University Library. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. 1996. Accessed 2 August, 2007 at http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/1918/14points.html

Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. London: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Schlesinger, Stephen. Act of Creation. The Founding of the United Nations. Colorado: Westview, 2003


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