“On the United Nations”

By Alexander Rivero


Behind each and every one of our individual political opinions lies a grounded philosophy. Some of the greatest men and women throughout history have dedicated their lives to fulfill the ideals of their political views – Maximillien Robespierre during the French Revolution, Dorothy Day during the most troubling economic times in New York City , Dr. King during the Civil Rights movement, etc. For President Woodrow Wilson, an often unmentioned character in conversations of social justice visionaries, his ideals were best and most concretely manifested in the birth of the League of Nations following World War I. For Wilson , the war’s horrific consequences definitively proved that the ability to kill had surpassed any nation’s ability to control and, without question, brought up the need for countries to gear their foreign policies more towards working together to prevent a new war. As Wilson saw it, the United States had the responsibility to lead global politics in a new, more interactive direction, and the birth of the League, guided by the noble idea of collective security (whenever a member state is threatened or attacked by another state, all other member states will assist the state being threatened), was intended to be the catalyst towards world peace. As well-intentioned as President Wilson was, his idea of global unification proved to be nothing more than what reluctant European leaders of the time (and the U.S. Senate) saw all along – a wholesome project that would eventually fall under the weight of the true force guiding international politics, the preservation of individual national interests. Eventually and inevitably, the League fell in Geneva on April 18, 1946 after World War II, the definitive event the League was designed to prevent in the first place, was well on its way towards filling the pages of our history books.

see all in Cubanology