The Cold Peace and the

Restoration of the League of Nations

 

“In the basis of the conviction that peace is in the best interest of all nations, you, the Members of the Assembly, will need to promote a solid institution. This New League is not, nor should it become, as the old League of Nations, reduced to impotence by selfishness and the right of veto. This new League offers a harmonious model of supranational cooperation. It is the only real attempt to globalise peace, in such a manner as to provide rights and growth. For this reason it can play a very special role in the world today and tomorrow.”

 

Achille Bonitto Oliva, First Chairman of the new League of Nations, Inaugural Speech, January 1^st 1971

 

 

The Cold Peace and the “Old Diplomacy”

 

The term "cold peace" was coined by the Brazilian diplomat Achille Bonitto Oliva who stated in 1952 that the balance between the forces on the contemporary world map is established on the base of extremely complicated as well as unequal economical, political and military relations which are today omnipresent. Therefore he named cold peace the unstable peace among nations who engaged in a race for economical and military superiority, carried on by methods short of overt military action, across vast expanses of the world and creating antagonistic geopolitical blocs.

 

According with Bonitto, the only positive outcome of the cold peace situation, if there is any such positive outcome, lies in the fact that the multiple sides did not allow their disagreement on the expansion of their competitive alliances to grow into some kind of confrontation. Instead, when the risk of that a minor incident could escalate in a second Great War, this time a nuclear one, the leaders of the competing blocks (the U.S., the U.S.S.R., Germany, France, Britain, Japan and Italy) jointly set up a mechanism of dialogue and consultation to handle multilateral relations and global security issues.

 

After the collapse of the original League of Nations, in September 4, 1948, the diplomatic methods returned to those prior to 1914, known as "The Old Diplomacy": a system of intercourse between the governments of sovereign states. This system relied exclusively on the exchange of ambassadors or ministers charged by their respective governments with the twin tasks of acting as both informants and intermediaries. As an informant, the ambassador or minister acted as the "man on the spot," keeping his government apprised of the internal conditions of the country in which he was stationed. As an intermediary, the ambassador or minister acted to present the views and interests of his own government to that of his hosts, as well as to encourage amicable relations between the host government and his own. A good ambassador or minister was one who, aided by his embassy staff, discharged both of these tasks with a high degree of success.

 

This diplomatic system had both its merits and its failings. For each state, it was clearly advantageous to have diplomatic representatives in as many foreign capitals as possible in order to have as broad an understanding of the countries with which one interacted, and this system, based on decentralization, fostered that broad understanding. Diplomats of the traditional school were also well springs of useful information, borne of first-hand experience and a mastery of the subtle art of negotiation. The failings of this system were manifestations of its conservative nature: it made the pursuit of a country's short-term national interests paramount over global interests, even when concern for the global community could be of demonstrable benefit for the individual nation, but perhaps only in the long-term. Two other elements of traditional diplomacy made its conduct hazardous: its secrecy, which often left countries not privy to those secrets dangerously unclear as to the intentions of their neighbors, and the use of war as a form of Clausewitzian persuasion, an option realistically available only to the Great Powers.

 

 

The new League of Nations: the Founding Act and its organization

 

The exhausting nature of the Cold Peace, with its unending military build-ups and diplomatic conflicts, became, in essence, the return of the "New Diplomacy." As a system, the New Diplomacy promoted arbitration and collective security as the surest means of avoiding future armed conflict. It emphasized open cooperation between nations to resolve global political, economic, social, humanitarian, and technical problems. Above all, the foundation of the New Diplomacy rested upon the need for greater international organization, a need epitomized by the resurrection of the League of Nations.

 

However, the new League, which formation was discussed in Geneva, Switzerland, between 1959 and 1969 by delegates of more than 50 countries, was not based on congeniality, or similar views and interests, but on the realization that the enlargement of the international alliances made necessary a way to discuss political and military issues that could not be satisfactorily resolved through traditional diplomacy. Moreover, the document, called "The Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security Between the Sovereign Nations of the World," contains distinct limitations and ambiguities. Cooperation between the blocs is nothing but a "cold cooperation," and the peace now believed to be emerging on the world stage should be regarded as a "warm peace." When looking ahead, it is easy to see that the old problems are still there. To some extent, these problems are becoming more defined, and the road to final peace on the world remains long, winding and bumpy.

 

Nonetheless, the governments and public opinions of the Great Powers, and even of the minor Powers, supported the resurrection of the idea that international stability and prosperity, fostered by a New League, would reduce prospects for international violence. In response to this declaration from the Indian government, who claimed that: “The New League of Nations is a cover for the preparation of military action for the suppression of small and weak nationalities”, a Japanese press statement on the negotiations to bring back the League of Nations declared in November 1967:

 

“We regard the new League of Nations not as a masked league of the so-called Great Powers, who have appropriated to themselves the right of disposing of the fate of weaker nations, as some critics say, but as a friendly association of peoples working for the general good…”

 

It was decided that the League should be administered by a Secretariat: a secretary-general, two deputy secretaries-general, three under secretaries-general, each a national of a different country. Below the under secretaries in rank was the legal advisor, and thirteen section directors, each of whom headed up an office responsible for one of the many different tasks as outlined by the Founding Act. The League has two other main organs, the Council and the Assembly.

 

The Council, which was obligated to meet at least once a year, but always met more frequently, consisted originally of eleven members: the seven great powers (Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, the Soviet Union and the United States), who held permanent seats, and four temporary members. After the United States abandoned the League in 1968, the Council consisted of only ten members, the six remaining great powers and the four small powers. Therefore, the Assembly voted to add three additional small powers to the Council, increasing its number to thirteen, and mere moths before its official inauguration, the Assembly again voted to increase the Council, this time to fifteen members, primarily because of the controversy surrounding the ultimatum presented by several small nations to abandon the League if their representation wasn’t increased. Since then, the small powers always had enjoyed a majority on the Council.

 

The Council, in many ways the executive body of the League, was broadly empowered by the Founding Act to "discuss at its meetings with any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world". In practice, its main function has been to oversee the work of the League, especially as that work related to international peace and security.

 

Of the three main organs of the League, the Assembly is by far the most important. Every member of the League is represented in the Assembly, which met each year for a month beginning on the first Monday in September (except for the first session, which met in January 1971). Member countries are each allowed to send three full representatives or delegates. As the work of the League has growth in complexity, the Assembly voted to allow each member to send additional personnel to Geneva to serve as substitute delegates. These individuals helped lighten the workload of the full delegates, thus contributing to greater efficiency among the many delegations. At the opening of each session, the Assembly elects a president and six vice-presidents, and then distribute that year's work among its six committees according to subject.

 

The First Committee deals with legal and constitutional questions, the Second with the technical organizations of the League, the Third with the reduction of armaments, the Fourth with budget and financial questions, the Fifth with social and general questions, and, lastly, the Sixth Committee deals with political questions. Each of the six committees is chaired by one of the Assembly's vice-presidents, and each delegation is allowed representation. Although the plenary Assembly receives a great deal of attention from the press and the public, the real work of the Assembly is undertaken in the committees, and its attendant subcommittees. At the end of each year's session, the Assembly pass resolutions on the work that it desires to be done in the coming year, and the Council -aided by the Secretariat- is then given the responsibility of seeing the work to fruition.

 

The first session was conducted in January 1^st, 1971, in the city of Geneva, Switzerland, and the first Assembly was formed by delegates from: Afghanistan, Albania, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Manzhouguo, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Serbia, Slovakia, Soviet Union, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, Uruguay and Venezuela.

 

 

The new League of Nations: a practical approach to Collective Security

 

The majority of the public in the member nations support the “ideals” of the League, and even some internationalist intellectuals want to see in the League the germ of a world state, but unlike the first League, the new League of Nations is not based in international goodwill and vain hopes, but in a realist view that the League is a useful tool for pursuing foreign policy objectives, and which could help protect the members from any future attack. The members of the Council favour a strong national defence, and they see no difference between pursuit of that policy, and support for the League's collective security elements, thus avoiding to turn the organization in a front for great power imperialism.

 

In this way, the founding members, including the Great Powers, avoided the insidious pattern that emerged with regard to Council intervention in international disputes in the first League: dominated as it was by the Great Powers, the original Council was more willing to settle disputes involving small powers than those which involved one or more great powers, or which involved the interests of any great power.

 

A brief glimpse in the labour of the League will serve as example of this realistic approach: in September 4, 1974, the League arranged a ceasefire between Turkey and Greece; in September 15, 1975, the League diplomatic pressure imposed a ceasefire in “La Guerra del Maghreb” (the Maghreb war, between Spain and Morocco) and in May 4, 1976, sponsored the peace talks between both countries.

 

On December 14, 1976, all the members of the League (excepting China and India) ratified the Nuclear Treaty, and in April, 1977, the League pressure forced India to withdraw its troops from Nepal. Also on January 14, 1980, the League of Nations arranged a ceasefire between Italians and Chadians, after the latter invaded the disputed territory of Aouzou.

 

But the most remarkable and controversial intervention of the League was in the South African War, also known as the League-South Africa War. When the National Party imposed its apartheid policy over the South African population, the League members approved a total embargo on South African goods (July 1965). This measure was criticized by several parties, the most vocal the United States, which retired its objections when domestic pressure groups forced the U.S. government to aply sanctions against South Africa. Desperate for breaking the League pressure and the menace in their northeastern border, on July 17 1972, South Africa invaded the Portuguese colony of Mozambique.

 

Heated –and some times, violent– debates followed the invasion: both countries were members of the League, and Germany, one of the members of the Council, tried desperately to avoid the League intervention. However, France and Britain wanted to intervene militarily against South Africa: both countries feared that the growing South African power could become a menaced for their economic and security interest in the Indian Ocean, and in Zimbabwe (a British Dominion) and Madagascar (a member of the French Union. They mustered Japanese, Italian and Soviet diplomatic support, and in November 1, 1972, the League Council declared the South African actions as “contrary to peace and international harmony” and asked the member nations for military support strictly to repel the South African invaders. A wide coalition was immediately formed: Indonesia, Taiwan, France and all the other members of the French Union, the Philippines, Nigeria, Jordan, Kenya, Ghana, Brazil, Belgium, India, the United Kingdom and Spain contributed with troops; while Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Iran contributed with logistical and financial support.

 

From the beginning it was a difficult test for the League: several neutral nations, among them the United States and Germany, bitterly criticized the maritime exclution Zone around South Africa, and when several US-flagged ships was detained and sent back by the French Navy and the Royal Navy, the United States menaced to send its own Navy to escort its merchant ships. Later on the war, the French proposed a League resolution, calling for not only to limit the League actions to repel the invaders, but to reform the South African political system along democratic lines, and to put on trial the responsible to enforce apartheid. It appeared then a just and reasonable measure, but Germany and the Soviet Union protested, alleging the League lacked the powers to impose political or social reforms on its member nations.

 

In spite of their opposition, on February 28, 1973, the League Assembly approved the Resolution 99 that demanded: an immediate withdrawal of the SADF from all occupied territory, payment of reparations to Portugal and the entire cost of the war to League members, elimination of SADF naval unit except for coastal defence, and the scale-down of its army and air force to self-defence capabilities, and the abolition of the apartheid system and the democratisation of the South African political system.

 

The South African Defense Force replied on March 8, 1973, with a 18 KT fission bomb, detonated over Indonesian and Taiwanese troops near the Limpopo river. The attack took by surprise the League Council, and before they could decide what to do, the theatre commander, the French general Charles de Gaulle, decided to use nuclear weapons on nuclear targets across South Africa. The SADF retaliated with chemical weapons, and this time the League decided to respond immediately with more nuclear attacks.

 

Several neutral countries, again lead by the United States, and even some members of the League, protested the League bombardments as “disproportionate”, despite the fact that the League forces were attacked first with nuclear weapons and lacked an effective defence against the SADF chemicals attacks. Other critics argued that the League had arrogated itself with powers such as to impose an arbitrary political system on its members, powers that assaulted the sovereignty of those nations, provoking the heinous but understandable South African response to the League demands. This dispute almost terminated with the League, and forced a post-war thorough revision of the League’s basic tenets and its role as a diplomatic forum; finally provoking a revision on the demands of the Resolution 99.

 

On September 5, 1973, the South African provisional government accepted the amended version of the Resolution 99, finalizing the war. The League supervised the destruction of the SADF nuclear weapons and installation, and assumed the control over Namibia, which gained its independence in 1980.

 

Since the war, the League has scrupulously kept its position as a diplomatic forum, and has served as a negotiation tool with remarkable success. However, the League actions regarding South Africa has soured its relation with the non-member nations, in particular the United States, which has forced several nation on its sphere of influence (i.e. Cuba and Liberia) to abandon the League, and it has extended this animosity to the League Council members, specially France and Japan.