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Collective security can be understood as a security arrangement in which all states cooperate collectively to provide security for all by the actions of all against any states within the groups which might challenge the existing order by using sanctions and force. While collective security is possible, several prerequisites have to be met for it to work.

1 History
2 Collective defense
3 See also
4 References
5 Bibliography
6 External links

History

Early mentions

Bahá'u'lláh (1817-1892), the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, prescribed collective security as a means to establish world peace in his writings during the 19th century:

The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world's Great Peace amongst men. Such a peace demandeth that the Great Powers should resolve, for the sake of the tranquillity of the peoples of the earth, to be fully reconciled among themselves. Should any king take up arms against another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him. If this be done, the nations of the world will no longer require any armaments, except for the purpose of preserving the security of their realms and of maintaining internal order within their territories. This will ensure the peace and composure of every people, government and nation.^[1]

Basic principles of Collective Security

First: almost every state, especially all major states, have to be in the collective security arrangement and committed to it for it to work. The League of Nations The League of Nations was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920, and the precursor to the United Nations. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. The League's primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing war through collective faced major problems with this given that the United States, a leading international power, did not join nor give its support to the organization. Similarly, when Italy invaded Abyssinia, Britain's and France's governments were more committed to blocking the rise of Germany, and hence did not seriously chide Mussolini, whom they saw as a potential ally against Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and, after 1934, also head of state as Führer und Reichskanzler, ruling the in 1935.

Second: the power to block the decision making process by veto must be limited. This was a major issue with the League of Nations, as it gave every state veto power. Within the UN, the 5 victor states of the Second World War all hold veto power. This form of collective security can be described as procedural collective security, as there is a heirarchy, which both allows and calls upon the major powers to be the main defenders of international peace and security.

Third: for sanctions to work, the international economy has to be sufficiently interdependent such that sanctions harm the intended country enough, but do not harm the countries doing the sanctioning. And for sanctions to work, universality of their application is especially important for them to have an effect.

Which leads to the fourth prerequisite; that for countries to trust collective security, they have to know it works well enough to safeguard their security. But at the same time, unless countries trust it, it's less likely to work. And while it is possible for collective security to start off with a small number of states and gradually have more adopt the idea, the first three issues need to be addressed in the first place, especially the second with regards to the UN's allocation of veto power and permanent seats.

Collective Security in the League of Nations

Collective security can be understood as a security arrangement in which all states cooperate collectively to provide security for all by the actions of all against any states within the groups which might challenge the existing order by using force. This contrasts with self-help strategies of engaging in war for purely immediate national interest. Another example of the failure of the League of Nation's collective security is the Manchurian Crisis The Mukden Incident was an early event in the Second Sino-Japanese War, although full-scale war would not start until 1937. On September 18, 1931, near Mukden in southern Manchuria, a section of railroad owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railway was dynamited. The Imperial Japanese Army, accusing Chinese dissidents of the act, responded with the, when Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is occupied part of China China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity (who was a League member). After the invasion, members of the League passed a resolution calling for Japan to withdraw or face severe penalties. Given that every nation on the League of Nations council had veto power, Japan promptly vetoed the resolution, severely limiting the LN's ability to respond. After two years of deliberation, the League passed a resolution condemning the invasion without committing the League's members to any action against it. The Japanese replied by quitting the League of Nations The League of Nations was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920, and the precursor to the United Nations. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. The League's primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing war through collective.

A similar process occurred in 1935, when Italy invaded Ethiopia. Sanctions were passed, but Italy would have vetoed any stronger resolution. Additionally, Britain and France sought to court Italy's government as a potential deterrent to Hitler, given that Mussolini was not in what would become the Axis alliance of WWII. Thus, neither enforced any serious sanctions against the Italian government. Additionally, in this case and with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the absence of the USA from the League of Nations deprived the LN of another major power that could have used economic leverage against either of the aggressor states. Inaction by the League subjected it to criticisms that it was weak and concerned more with European issues (most leading members were European), and did not deter Hitler from his plans to dominate Europe. The Ethiopian monarch Emperor Haile Selassie I continued to support collective security though, having assessed that impotence lay not in the principle but in its covenantors commitment to honor its tenets.

The most active and articulate exponent of collective security during the immediate pre-war years was the Soviet foreign minister Maxim Litvinov Maxim Maximovich Litvinov (July 17, 1876–December 31, 1951) was a Russian-Jewish revolutionary and prominent Soviet diplomat, but after the Munich Agreement The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without the presence of Czechoslovakia. Today, it is widely in September 1938 and Western passivity in the face of German occupation of the remainder of Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992. From 1939 to 1945 the state did not have de facto existence, due to its forced division and partial incorporation into Nazi Germany, but the Czechoslovak in March 1939 it was shown that the Western Powers were not prepared to engage in collective security against aggression by the Axis Powers together with the Soviet Union, Soviet foreign policy was revised and Litvinov was replaced as foreign minister in early May 1939, in order to facilitate the negotiations that led to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, colloquially named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939. It was a non-aggression pact with Germany, signed by Litvinov's successor, Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium (Politburo) of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev. He was a major[citation needed] perpetrator of the and, on August 23 of that year. The war in Europe broke out a week later, with the German invasion of Poland The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign (German: Polenfeldzug) in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II. The invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing on September 1.

Recent events

Cited examples of the limitations of collective security include the Falklands War The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict/Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom (UK) over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The Falkland Islands consist of two large and many small islands in the South Atlantic Ocean east of Argentina; their name and. When Argentina The Argentine claims in Antarctica along with the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands (administered by the United Kingdom) shown in light green invaded the islands, which are overseas territories A dependent territory, dependent area or dependency is a territory that does not possess full political independence or sovereignty as a State of the United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[note 7] is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land, many UN members stayed out of the issue, as it did not directly concern them. There was also a controversy about the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language role in that conflict due their obligations as an Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance was an agreement ratified on 1947 in Rio de Janeiro among many American countries. The central principle contained in its articles is that an attack against one is to be considered an attack against them all; this was known as the "hemispheric defense" doctrine. The treaty was initially (the "Rio Pact") member. However, many politicians who view the system as having faults also believe it remains a useful tool for keeping international peace.

The role of the UN and collective security in general is also evolving given the rise of internal state conflicts since the end of WWII, there have been 111 military conflicts world wide, but only 9 of which have involved two or more states going to war with one another. The remainder have either been internal civil wars or civil wars where other nations intervened in some manner. This means that collective security may have to evolve towards providing a means to ensure stability and a fair international resolution to those internal conflicts. Whether this will involve more powerful peacekeeping forces or a larger role for the UN diplomatically will likely be judged from a case to case basis.