The “War To End All Wars” concluded with the 1919 signing of the Treaty of Versailles. One of its provisions called for the establishment of a "League of Nations" to ensure that the First World War really WOULD be 'the war to end all wars'.
The League was set up by the victorious Allied powers under the terms of a document known as ‘The Covenant’. It outlined the League’s mission: “To promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security”
The League was the brainchild of US president Woodrow Wilson, who won the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. But the United States was never a member. The Senate refused to ratify membership; correctly concluding that membership would subordinate U-S sovereignty to the League.
In 1931, Imperial Japan invaded Manchuria and established a puppet republic called Manchukuo. When the League of Nations objected, Tokyo resigned its membership. The League of Nations blustered and fumed and sent many letters of protest, which Japan ignored until the organization tired of sending them.
Four years later, Benito Mussolini, noting the League's ineffective response to Japanese aggression, invaded Ethiopia. The League condemned Italy, sent many letters of protest, and threatened sanctions.
In 1936, Mussolini's forces occupied Addis Ababa and Ethiopia became part of Italy. Adolph Hitler watched this response carefully and took notes. This encouraged him to test the League’s resolve in 1936.
Hitler marched his storm troopers into the Rhineland to claim the Ruhr as German territory, contrary to the Treaty of Versailles. The French protested but did nothing. The League of Nations explained this action away as an understandable redress of excessive measures imposed on Germany after World War One. It did nothing.
Hitler’s stature grew with the German people. Even the German military officers were amazed that the League of Nations did nothing. Some industrial leaders who, for economic reasons backed Hitler because they thought they could control him, were dumbfounded.
Some were even disappointed that the Western nations did nothing. On March 11, 1938, Hitler annexed Austria into the Third Reich. When the Austrian Chancellor – forced to resign by Hitler – refused to name a Nazi as his successor, Hitler marched his troops into Vienna and took over without a shot being fired. Again, the League of Nations took no effective action against this clear violation of the 1919 treaty of Saint Germain. It was an act of aggression that was not met with force.
Emboldened by his success at facing down the entire free world, Hitler persuaded British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to surrender a part of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. He spoke of the need for German “Lebensraum”. This was a coined Nazi word for “living space” for the German people.
Representing the League of Nations, Chamberlain surrendered to this demand without even consulting the Czechoslovakian President. Now Hitler’s stature grew to mythical proportions. This enabled him to crush Czechoslovakia with a new kind of war known as “blitzkrieg” or lightning war. The Allies were unable to respond. There was no stopping Hitler after this.
On behalf of the League of Nations, Chamberlain issued guarantees of protection to Poland. Hitler, now confident that the League was a ‘toothless tiger,’ invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. World War Two had begun. Hitler’s audacity and boldness quieted every voice of reason in Germany.
And the enormous tragedy of it all is that it could probably have been prevented if the League of Nations had boldly stood against Hitler and backed him down at the beginning. World War Two concluded with the replacement of the League of Nations by the United Nations. The new organization’s purpose was to prevent, through international cooperation, another ‘war to end all wars.’
The historical parallels between the 1930’s and the 1990’s are unmistakable. Throughout the 1990’s, what President George W Bush aptly dubbed ‘the Axis of Evil’, took turns testing U-N resolve and noting the reaction of the global community. First, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and survived the U-N-led war to push his troops back across the Iraqi border.
His Axis counterparts watched as he defied the U-N’s repeated resolutions with impunity. By the way, when Saddam’s Iraq finally fell twelve years later, it was at the hands of a United States-led coalition AND it was over the vociferous objections of the United Nations that Saddam had so blatantly defied. After observing the U-N’s response to Iraqi aggression, Kim Jong-il pushed the envelope still further with the first North Korean nuclear standoff in 1994.
That resulted in the international community bribing Pyongyang not to develop nuclear weapons. President Clinton gave him all sorts of ‘goodies’ to get him to back off his nuke program. Like any good extortionist, Kim Jong-il took the bribe but ignored the terms.
He got away with it for eight years while the U-N blustered and threatened him with letters of diplomatic protest. He learned that he could get all kinds of rewards by rattling his missiles and then allowing the West to bribe him to stop.
Meanwhile, even more dangerous aggressors were taking note. Iran’s mad mullahs took careful notice of the United Nations response. Iran, the third member of the ‘Axis of Evil’, began testing the U-N in 1998 when its own nuclear program was uncovered. It has managed to hold the international community at bay by creating the diplomatic equivalent of a Mexican standoff, thanks to its fostering of Islamofacism and the threat of escalating the war.
Now, Iran is only a few months, if that, from nuclear capability. And once again, we have North Korean missile tests, carried out in open defiance of the United Nations. To add insult and intensify the provocation; the tests coincided with both our 4th of July and the launch of the space shuttle Discovery.
The Taepodong test was deemed a ‘failure’ by the U-S because the missile exploded only 40 seconds after launch and at an undetermined altitude. But it’s worth noting that a powerful nuclear weapon detonated 180 miles above the United States could generate an ElectroMagneticPulse that experts say would instantly plunge half the country into the technological 1890's.
North Korea is now preparing several more missiles for ‘test’ launch. The United Nations is in a tither. Diplomatic letters of protest are flying like confetti. Military and intelligence analysts warn darkly of all the important lessons learned by Pyongyang, even though the test itself was considered a failure.
Maybe it wasn’t Pyongyang that the July 4th missile tests were intended to educate. If the ‘Axis of Evil’ analogy holds true to its historical template, the lessons were really intended for the mad mullahs in Tehran. It’s now their turn to move. Even casual observation should teach us that only ‘the aggressors’ learn from history. ‘The appeasers’ NEVER learn.
But the stakes today are far more dangerous than ever before. Armageddon looms large before us.
From the Oracle:
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