Strategizing for peace: approaches to global security in crisis and war 1933-1953

Abstract

In this dissertation I examine the evolution of two international relations theories during the years 1933 - 1953. I investigate how the concepts of power balancing and collective security developed in the United States and Great Britain during this period with a focus on academic and foreign policy elites. In addition to analyzing trends in thinking about these two ideas, I also discuss whether the academic debate that occurred during the middle twentieth century can inform modem perspectives on collective security and power balancing. The majority of sources used in this study are drawn from the realm of academia and respected contemporary analysts of foreign policy. The individuals examined feature E.H. Carr, Norman Angell, and Harold Nicolson ofthe United Kingdom and Walter Lippmann, Hans J. Morgenthau, and George Kennan ofthe United States. The dissertation proceeds along chronological lines, dividing the years upon which it focuses into interwar and postwar phases as a means of assessing the impact of the Second World War on the development ofthe theories in question. It demonstrates that during the 1930s, discussion of security paradigms proved strongest in Britain, with the debate in the United States remaining focused largely on isolationism. American policy analysts underwent a dramatic shift in focus as a result of their country's entry into the war, and joined their British counterparts in an intense discussion of how best to organize international security in the years following 1941. In this study I demonstrate that collective security and power balancing, despite interpretations that depict them as contradictory ideals, underwent simultaneous development throughout the middle twentieth century. Furthermore, the sources included in this work indicate that certain influential individuals advocated the two concepts simultaneously. As a result, I conclude that the debate during the period in question demonstrates that collective security and power balancing form only pieces of a wider argument on how best to secure other political ends, and that they can serve as complimentary rather than contradictory approaches to achieving international security and global stability.