The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon (Upated 2nd Edition)

COLLECTIVE SECURITY

53 COLLECTIVE SECURITY Came to prominence during and immediately after World War I, partly as a reaction against the perceived failings of the balance of power system. The concept’s best-known early advocate was Woodrow Wilson. Appalled by the outbr eak of war in Eur ope, Wilson decided by the end of 1914 that nations must be “bound together for the protection of the integrity of each, so that any one nation breaking from this bond will bring upon herself war; that is to say punishment, automatically”. 1 He called for a League to Enforce Peace, and publicly committed himself to “an association of nations”.2 In his famous 1917 “peace without victory” speech to the U.S. Senate calling for war against Germany , Wilson lashed out at the “crude machinations” of the balance of power and its failure to keep the peace in Europe.3 He pledged that once the war was over, he would work to r eplace the balance of power with a “community of power.”4 It was this idea which would eventually grow into the modern notion of collective security and lead to the creation of the ill-fated League of Nations. While the United States turned its back on collective security when it rejected participation in the League, the idea r esurfaced under President Roosevelt. In 1943, Cor dell Hull, one of the architects of the successor to the League, the United Nations, declared that the cr eation of an international collective security 01 A_Pac Security Lexicon 9/24/07, 9:03 AM 53 54 organization meant ther e would be “no need for spher es of influence, for balance of power , or any other of the special arrangements through which, in the unhappy past, the nations strove to safeguar d their security .”5 Speaking to the Senate following the 1945 San Francisco confer ence, Senator Arthur Vandenberg declared that he would support ratification of the United Nations Charter, saying “peace must not be cheated of its collective chance … We must have collective security to stop the next war, if possible before it starts; and we must have collective security to crush it swiftly if it starts; and we must have collective action to cr ush it swiftly if it starts in spite of our or ganized precautions.”6 The fundamental basis of collective security is the idea of all against one.7 States that participate in a collective security system, while retaining considerable autonomy in their foreign relations, commit to join a coalition to confront any would-be aggressor. An attack against any of the members is tr eated as an attack against them all. In one description, collective security is a “permanent potential alliance against the unknown enemy … on behalf of the unknown victim”.8 Inis Claude has said collective security “purports to provide security for all states, by the action of all states, against all states which might challenge the existing or der by the arbitrary unleashing of their power”. 9 The aim of such a system is mor e effectively to deter aggr ession than would be possible thr ough “balancing” forces in a purely anarchic environment. Advocates of collective security argue that because any would-be aggr essor will be met with an overwhelming preponderance of power, over time the use of force will decline, and international relations will become more cooperative and less conflictual.10 Examples of collective security organizations vary from what Claude calls “ideal collective security systems” to concert-based arrangements (see the entry on concert of powers). 11 An ideal collective security system would involve all the states of the world, cover all regions of the world, and r equire a legally binding and codified commitment on the members to r espond against aggression whenever and wherever it might appear. Such a system obviously assumes a very high degree of common interest among states. In practice, there has never been an or ganization that has met the r equirements of an ideal collective security system, although the League of Nations and the United Nations come closest.12 A concert-based system lies at the other end of the spectrum. Though also predicated on the idea of all against one, COLLECTIVE SECURITY 01 A_Pac Security Lexicon 9/24/07, 9:03 AM 54 55 concert membership tends to be mor e restricted, usually to the great powers in a system. Concert members consult...