Thinking about world politics

World war 1 left leaders and ordinary ppl aghast. The balance of power- the relative equality of strength among all the contending major states and the shifting alliances to preserve equilibrium when one state threatened to become dangerous- had provided a very substantial degree of peace in Europe since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. That system was violently upset by a war that lasted four years and left 9 million soldiers dead. Many, perhaps foremost among them U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, concluded that the balance-of-power system was fatally flawed and a new world order had to be constructed. These ppl became known as idealists because they had a vision, or ideal, of how a new and peaceful world order might be constructed. The idealists supported the formation of the League of Nations and other institutions of international law, hoping to build a system of collective¹²Í¬µÄ security in which democratic nations to defeat unjust aggression. The events leading to Worl...