Cooperative Security

An agreement entered into by parties with similar political, military, or economic goals on a local, regional, or global level to aid each other in the achievement of those goals and in the countering of enemy threats. Also, a framework for the maintenance of peace and security on a local, regional, or global level by ensuring the cooperation of a group of parties interested in similar goals.

At the end of World War I, there was a tangible sense in the domestic spheres of the victors that the citizens of those states, who had sacrificed a great deal to fight and win the war, were ready to collect their spoils. The constituencies wanted retribution, if not vengeance, and state leaders were quite aware of the domestic pressure to deliver. They impressed this on the diplomats they sent to Versailles in 1919 to create the treaty that would set the terms for the postwar world.

There was another prominent dynamic setting the tone and the goals to be achieved globally following what was known as the Great War. It was a growing sense that the war had been too costly in terms of lives and money to chance allowing another one to spiral out of control as, in many ways, had World War I.

Thus, leaders embarked on creating a framework for global security that would ensure that no such calamity was repeated. This atmosphere was a fertile ground for American president Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points proposal, which laid out a plan for the creation of an international system of cooperation among friendly states and espoused a similar worldview and morality to be applied to the rule of peoples and international political, military, and economic affairs.

The idea for such a cooperative council was embraced, ironically, by the international community but not by Wilson's own Congress. The League of Nations, of which the United States would never become a member, was created.

The League of Nations was founded on the principle of cooperative security, whereby all members agreed to address budding conflicts and acts of aggression perpetrated by or against one of its own members, with the goal of suppressing or diffusing such conflicts. It sought to prevent the escalation of conflicts through various means, starting with diplomacy, before they became drastic and unmanageable. Its intent was to create a body of parties with a collective interest in maintaining world peace, thereby guaranteeing that the mutual recognition of this goal would lead to cooperation toward ensuring its maintenance.

Evidenced by the occurrence, not 30 years later, of World War II, the League of Nations was a failed enterprise. There were a number of reasons for this, not the least of which was the United States' lack of participation. Other, more practical reasons included the lack of credibility of the organization, which suffered because of its inability to deal successfully with conflicts arising form Italy's invasion of Ethiopia and Japan's invasion of Manchuria, for example.

Part of the system's failure has often been attributed to the fact that unanimity was not required in the organization's decisions. This resulted in weak edicts being issued and weakened the organization's efforts to take a stand. For example, the organization could issue a reprimand or call for sanctions against a state that had perpetrated an act of aggression without the unanimous support of all parties. These resolutions held little water when only some of the parties supported them, and when only some member states enforced sanctions against the subject of the resolution while others continued to conduct business as usual. In fact, this would hurt the economies of the states that participated and benefited those that eschewed the organization's edict.

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