Latin America and the League of Nations

1926 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-30
Author(s):  
Percy Alvin Martin
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
Post War ◽  
International Status

To students of international relations it has become almost a commonplace that among the most significant and permanent results of the World War has been the changed international status of the republics of Latin America. As a result of the war and post-war developments in these states, the traditional New World isolation in South America, as well as in North America, is a thing of the past. To our leading sister republics is no longer applicable the half-contemptuous phrase, current in the far-off days before 1914, that Latin America stands on the margin of international life. The new place in the comity of nations won by a number of these states is evidenced—to take one of the most obvious examples—by the raising of the legations of certain non-American powers to the rank of embassies, either during or immediately after the war. In the case of Brazil, for instance, where prior to 1914 only the United States maintained an ambassador, at the present time Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, and Japan maintain diplomatic representatives of this rank.Yet all things considered one of the most fruitful developments in the domain of international relations has been the share taken by our southern neighbors in the work of the League of Nations. All of the Latin American republics which severed relations with Germany or declared war against that country were entitled to participate in the Peace Conference. As a consequence, eleven of these states affixed their signatures to the Treaty of Versailles, an action subsequently ratified in all cases except Ecuador.

Sovereignty at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard V. Smith
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Great Power ◽  
World War ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
The World ◽  
Paris Peace Conference

We have long known that the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 “failed” in the sense that it did not prevent the outbreak of World War II. This book investigates not whether the conference succeeded or failed, but the historically specific international system it created. It explores the rules under which that system operated, and the kinds of states and empires that inhabited it. Deepening the dialogue between history and international relations theory makes it possible to think about sovereignty at the conference in new ways. Sovereignty in 1919 was about remaking “the world”—not just determining of answers demarcating the international system, but also the questions. Most histories of the Paris Peace Conference stop with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on June 28, 1919. This book considers all five treaties produced by the conference as well as the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey in 1923. It is organized not chronologically or geographically, but according to specific problems of sovereignty. A peace based on “justice” produced a criminalized Great Power in Germany, and a template problematically applied in the other treaties. The conference as sovereign sought to “unmix” lands and peoples in the defeated multinational empires by drawing boundaries and defining ethnicities. It sought less to oppose revolution than to instrumentalize it. The League of Nations, so often taken as the supreme symbol of the conference’s failure, is better considered as a continuation of the laboratory of sovereignty established in Paris.

Latin America in World War I

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich E. Schuler
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
World War ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Military Advisors

The English-speaking world awaits its first detailed study examining Latin America during World War I. Many historical events of the era remain little-known, as does much of the region’s military history during this period. While key chronologies, personalities, groups, and historical avenues remain unidentified, researchers must draw knowledge from existing texts. The authors cited in this article for further study cover only a small fraction of the myriad topics presented by the war. World War I set in motion a unique power readjustment in Latin America, the likes of which had not been experienced in the region since the 1820s. Most significantly, the temporary suspension of economic ties with Europe disrupted everyday processes that elites and commoners had previously taken for granted. Changes in economy and finance triggered a struggle between indigenous Americans, peasants, workers, elites, and immigrants, setting the stage for the social and political changes of the 1920s. Amidst the upheaval of World War I, non-elite Latin American groups successfully focused national politics on regional and ethnic issues, while elite Latin Americans weighed the potential advantages of ties with Spanish and Italian authoritarianism. World War I ended European financial dominance over the region, and the destruction of Europe reduced export markets to a point where Latin America’s economic relations with the United States gained new significance. U.S. military advisors took their places alongside European trainers, and many different “U.S.” actors emerged on Latin American soil, acting out rivaling understandings of appropriate U.S. activity in Latin America. The war heralded the end of Belgian influence and of significant French power in the region, British acceptance of U.S. financial preeminence, and questions as to how Prussian military expertise could be leveraged to Latin America’s benefit in the future. The creation of the League of Nations, a development alien to Latin American political culture, caught the region off guard. And yet it laid the foundation for global Latin American diplomacy in the 1930s and after World War II. In the end, the search for a new understanding of a Latin American nation’s place on the changing world stage led to the elevation of the institution of the national army as a social and political arbiter. The myth of the army as embodiment of national essence would last until the 1980s.

Latin America and the United Nations

1965 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 714-727
Author(s):  
Bryce Wood ◽  
Minerva Morales M.
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
American States ◽  
International Bureaucracy ◽  
The Caribbean

When the governments of the Latin American states were taking part in the negotiations leading to the founding of the UN, they could hardly have done so with nostalgic memories of the League of Nations. The League had provided no protection to the Caribbean countries from interventions by the United States, and, largely because of United States protests, it did not consider the Tacna-Arica and Costa Rica-Panama disputes in the early 1920's. Furthermore, Mexico had not been invited to join; Brazil withdrew in 1926; and Argentina and Peru took little part in League affairs. The organization was regarded as being run mainly for the benefit of European states with the aid of what Latin Americans called an “international bureaucracy,” in which citizens from the southern hemisphere played minor roles. The United States was, of course, not a member, and both the reference to the Monroe Doctrine by name in Article 21 of the Covenant and the organization's practice of shunning any attempt to interfere in inter-American affairs against the wishes of the United States made the League in its first decade a remote and inefficacious institution to countries that were seriously concerned about domination by Washington.

Latin American Trade Relations

1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-83
Author(s):  
Shirley Christian
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Cold War

There has always been a certain attitude in Washington having to do with Latin America. It is that Latin America is not quite a grown-up place and, therefore, is worthy of intense US interest only when the region, or part of it, falls into a crisis that crosses paths with one of the US hot-button issues of the moment: drugs, immigration, human rights, communism (until recently) and, farther back, fascism. In other words, Latin America has been worthy of attention only when the United States decided to “do good” (e.g., human rights crusades), incorporate the region into efforts at solving US domestic problems (e.g., drugs), or needed firm support from the region in some international effort (e.g., the Cold War and World War II).

French War Aims and the American Challenge, 1914–1918

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 877-894 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
First World War ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
World War ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Aims ◽  
First World

Between 1917 and 1919 the United States made its first, spectacular intrusion into European power politics. For President Wilson, entry into the First World War was a chance not only to eliminate an immediate threat to American interests but also to transform international relations. The time had come to weld the industrialized countries into a community of interest, based on a shared loyalty to representative government and the market economy, expressed by membership of a League of Nations, and in which economic and territorial causes of tension would have been removed. But hardly had the German obstacle to this programme been overcome before, at the peace conference of 1919, Wilson ran up against almost equally determined obstruction from his former allies. This article examines one source of that antagonism, in the latent conflict before the armistice between American war aims and those of France. It argues that French policy was moulded by a tension between the Paris leaders' own desires for the settlement with Germany and their need to preserve a system of alliances deemed essential for French security in the future as well as for the war itself. By 1917 French governments were already confronted with dilemmas which were to harass them for the succeeding twenty years.

East Asian, European, and North American Multinational Firm Strategies in Latin America

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lourdes Casanova
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
East Asian ◽  
The United States ◽  
Multinational Firm ◽  
Macroeconomic Conditions ◽  
Firm Strategies ◽  
The Past ◽  
High Level

Over the past decade, multinationals (MNCs) have followed three main objectives while entering Latin America: efficiency seeking, growth seeking, and resource seeking. Efficiency seeking MNCs aim to reduce costs in their global production process through access to cheaper labor, and proximity to destination markets such as the United States. Growth seeking firms enter Latin American markets to grow and/or acquire new markets. They are by nature more dependent on the macroeconomic conditions in local markets for their success. Resource seeking firms enter Latin America in the search of minerals, metals, and hydrocarbons. This paper introduces the concept of “natural markets” to explain the relative successes of MNCs from different regions – Europe (mainly Iberian), USA, and Asia. ‘Natural markets’ for a MNC are defined as those markets sharing a common history or language or having a high level of physical proximity with the country of origin of the MNC. This paper proposes that a firm focusing on natural markets has a comparative advantage, and thus increases the probability of its success. The paper also draws upon the experiences of successful MNCs in Latin America to infer some lessons for East Asian MNCs wishing to operate in the region.

Lessons of World War II and Strategic Planning of the Big Three (1945–1949)

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-84
Author(s):  
I. E. Magadeev
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Far East ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War

The paper examines how military and political leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain assessed in the first post-war years and in the face of emerging bipolar world order the lessons of World War II, how the latter influenced their strategic planning and forecasts with the emergence of nuclear weapons. The author outlines the key features of this period (1945–1949), including still fresh memories of the unprecedented destruction and losses of the past war, the US ‘nuclear monopoly’, and the absence of a system for nuclear deterrence. The paper provides a systematic comparison of lessons from the past war, learnt by the Soviet, the US and British establishment, identifies similarities and differences between them. The author concludes that WWII was perceived by the political and military leaders of that time as a model of the eventual ‘great war’ in the future, which almost certainly would be ‘total’ and ‘global’ in scope and would demand both thorough preparations during the peacetime and the militarization of civil life. Indeed, the experience of WWII had greatly influenced the strategic and operational planning in the USSR, the USA and Great Britain in 1945–1949. Moscow prepared to face the potential aggression on its Western borders or in the Far East in order to avoid the mistakes of 1941. In Washington the decisionmakers acknowledged the Soviet superiority in conventional weapons and didn’t exclude the possibility that the Soviet Army could quickly establish control over the Western Europe and that the US military would have to retake it in a ‘new Operation Overlord’. The pessimistic outlook of the ‘defense of the Rhine’ was also shared in London, and the British military planned to evacuate the troops to the British Isles (‘shadow of Dunkirk’) and to focus on strategic bombing of the USSR and its allies. Even the appearance of nuclear weapons, that would dramatically alter the strategic context in the following years, played a relatively minor role in 1945–1949. The author concludes that the shadow of World War II and its lessons had a long-lasting effect on the post-war international relations.

Teaching “Americanism with a World Perspective”: The Junior Red Cross in the U.S. Schools from 1917 to the 1920s

2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia F. Irwin
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
World Peace ◽  
World War ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Immigration Restriction ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
History Of

The involvement of the United States in World War I, from April 1917 to November 1918, marked a high point in the history of American internationalist thought and engagement. During those nineteen months, President Woodrow Wilson and his administration called on Americans to aid European civilians and to support Wilson's plans for a peacetime League of Nations, defining both as civic obligations; many responded positively. The postwar years, however, saw a significant popular backlash against such cosmopolitan expectations. In 1920, Congress failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and rejected U.S. participation in the League. A growing chorus for 100% Americanism and immigration restriction, meanwhile, offered evidence of a U.S. public that was becoming more insular, more withdrawn from the world. Yet such trends were never universal. As scholars have begun to acknowledge, many Americans remained outward looking in their worldviews throughout the period, seeing engagement with and compassion for the international community as vital to ensuring world peace.

Subordinate-State Agency and US Hegemony: Colombian Consent versus Bolivian Dissent

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quintijn B Kat
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Agency ◽  
Design Phase ◽  
Plan Colombia ◽  
American States ◽  
Us Hegemony

Abstract The strategies of subordinate states in hegemonic or asymmetrical relations have been widely studied by international relations scholars. Such works generally focus on how a subordinate state can influence the hegemon's behavior so as to address and further the interests of the subordinate state. The relation between subordinate-state agency and the hegemonic system, the makeup of the hegemonic order, itself receives less attention. Through analysis of two cases of US hegemony in Latin America, this article examines how subordinate-state agency may strengthen or weaken the hegemonic system and, as such, makes a case for subordinate-state agency as an underpinning element of hegemony. It explores Colombian agency in the design phase of Plan Colombia as contributing to US hegemony, while Bolivian agency under the presidency of Evo Morales is examined as a challenge. In both instances, it was the United States, rather than the Latin American states, that took on a passive role, leaving the initiative with Colombia and Bolivia. Therefore, instead of reaffirmations of active one-way US hegemony versus passive subordinate states, the paper proposes to understand both cases as demonstrating the importance of subordinate-state agency in the configuration of the hegemonic system.

The Concept of the Caribbean in the Latin American Policy of the United States

1973 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-308
Author(s):  
Harold Molineu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Caribbean Region ◽  
The Past ◽  
Caribbean Area ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Armed Intervention ◽  
Special Region

During the past twenty years, the United States has been involved in three cases of armed intervention in Latin America: Guatemala in 1954, Cuba in 1961, and the Dominican Republic in 1965. In addition, there was the naval blockade and possibility of intervention in Cuba in 1962 during the missile crisis. Each of these episodes occurred in the Caribbean region (defined as including those areas either in or adjacent to the Caribbean Sea). There were no similar armed interventions elsewhere in Latin America during this period, and in fact, all of the incidents of United States armed intervention in the Twentieth Century have taken place in the Caribbean area. Therefore, in its actions in Latin America, the United States appears to distinguish between the Caribbean area and the rest of the continent. The Caribbean is treated as a special region where military intervention is apparently more justifiable than elsewhere in Latin America. Only in the area outside the Caribbean has Washington found it possible to abide by its inter-American treaty commitments to nonintervention.

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