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World War II
Liberalism in the Interwar Period
 Treaty of Versailles (1919)
 Disillusionment with BOP politics
 National self-determination:
– Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic countries
 Liberal Idealism:
– Woodrow Wilson: “The Fourteen Points”
The League of Nations (1920)
 Collective security principle
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Aggression against one is aggression against all (art. 16)
Outlaw aggression
Pledge to assist victims of aggression
Act collectively against aggressor
 Decisions by unanimity
 US did not join the League
 Treaty of Locarno (1925): allows Germany into the League
The Failure of Collective Security
 Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1931)
 Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935)
 German annexation of Sudetenland
(Czechoslovakia) 1938
– Munich Agreement between Hitler and Chamberlein
Hitler’s Rise to Power
 National Socialist Party (Nazis) win and becomes
chancellor: 1933
– National humiliation
– Economy devastated
– Hyper inflation
 Totalitarian state system
 Fascist and nationalist ideology
 Expansionist foreign policy
Appeasing Hitler
 March into Rhineland (1936)
 Annexation of Austria (1938)
 The Munich Agreement over Czechoslovakia
(1938)
 Treaty between Germany and USSR
Blitzkrieg and Over-reach
 Germany invades Norway, Holland, Belgium,
France, pushes back the British
 Germany invades USSR (1942)
 Japan and the US get involved (1941)
 Germany defeated: 1945
The Nuremberg Trials (1945-1949)
Causes of WWII?
Structural Causes
 Post WWI peace unstable: Treaty of Versailles
 Failure of institutions and collective security
 Failure to balance German power
Domestic Politics
 Rise of fascism in Germany, Spain, Italy
 Isolationism in the US
 Imperialism in Japan
 The Great Depression and economic collapse
 Internal divisions in liberal democracies
The Role of Individuals
 Hitler’s war?
 Poor judgment on the part of Neville
Chamberlain?
 Miscalculation of by Japanese leadership?
 Wrong lessons learned from WWI?
Was World War II inevitable?
What factors contributed most to this event?
Lessons of WWII
 Appeasement leads to larger conflicts
 Nationalism taken to extreme dangerous
 Disillusionment with collective security and
international institutions
 The Holocaust: “Never Again!”
War and Its Causes
Frequency of war: 5500 years of recorded history: 14,500 wars.
278 from 1480 to 1940.
224 from 1816 to 1980
Several causes of war (Farnsworth, 1992):
 Human nature
 Balance of power theory: imbalances cause war, equilibrium causes
peace
 Arms races and security dilemma
 Number of states in system - both directions: some argue more equal
powers equals less war; others like Waltz that fewer is better
 Demands of domestic system - capitalist economies battle over rights to
resources; competing economic/political systems; colonial wars;
 Nationalism
 Bad leadership and policy choices